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SIM O N THE JESTeS; 



BY 



WILLIAM J. LOCKE 



r 



Illustrations by 

JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG 



• • • » 



* « 



•• • 



NEW YORK 

JOHN LANE COMPANY 

MCMX 



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CopTTi^t, 1909 
Br Thb PmLUM Publwhimc Comtmt 



Coprright, 1910 
Bt Johh Lame CowrAHY 



'^ 



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, ^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FAOB 
I \ THB DOOR OPBNBD AND DALB KYNNBRSLBT BURST, UN- 
! ^ J ANNOUNCBD, INTO THB ROOM. FfOfUlspiece .... lo6 

, ^ MAISIB 25 

,^^ "you nbvbr loybd. you don't know what lovb is ** . 31 



■\ 



^ 



A DWARF NOT MORB THAN FOUR FBBT HIGH BNTBRBD 
THB ROOM, AND FBLL ON HIS KNBBS BY THB SIDB OF 
MADAMB BRANDT'S CHAIR 44 



f > HB DASHBD HIS FIST DOWN ON THB MARBLB TABLB SO 

^ THAT THB GLASSBS JINGLBD 135 

' ^ "don't MAKB MB CRY. i'm VBRY NBAR IT " 169 

V I pushbd hbr asidb and glared at HIM 183 

"but I WANTBD TO DIB, MY DBAR LOLA," I INSISTBD . . ao6 



THBN SHB SBT TO WORK TO BRING THB CATS INTO THBIR 

PROPBR CONDITION 237 

IT WAS NOT A' PLBASANT VIGIL 259 

"l DARBN'T GO HOMB AND FACB THB MISSUS AND THB KIDS " 302 

HBR HAND SHIELDING THB SIDB OF HBR FACB .... 327 




SIMON THE JESTER 



CHAPTER I 

I MET Renniker the other day at the club. He is a 
man who knows ever3rthing — ^from the method of trim- 
ming a puppy's tail for a dog-show, without being dis- 
qualified, to the innermost workings of the mind of 
every European potentate. If I want information on 
any subject imder heaven I ask Renniker. 

"Can you tell me," said I, "the most God-forsaken 
spot in England ? " 

Renniker, being in a flippant mood, mentioned a 
fashionable watering-place on the South Coast. I 
pleaded the seriousness of my question. 

"What I want," said I, "is a place compared to which 
Golgotha, Aceldama, the Dead Sea, the Valley of Jehosha- 
phat, and the Bowery would be leafy bowers of imin- 
terrupted delight." 

"Then Murglebed-on-Sea is what you're looking for," 
said Renniker. "Are you going there at once?" 

" At once," said L 

"It's November," said he, "and a villainous Novem- 
ber at that; so you'll see Murglebed-on-Sea in the fine 
flower of its desolation." 

I thanked him, went home, and summoned my ex- 
cellent man Rogers. 

"Rogers," said I, "I am going to the seaside. I hear 
that Murglebed is a nice quiet little spot. You will go 
down and inspect it for me and bring back a report." 



2 SIMON THE JESTER 

He went blithe and light-hearted, though he thought 
me insane; he returned with the air of a serving-man 
whOy expecting to find a well-equipped pantry, had 
wandered into a chamel house. 

"It's an awful place, sir. It's sixteen miles from z 
railway station. The shore is a mud flat. There's nc 
hotel, and the inhabitants are like cannibals." 

"I start for Murglebed-on-Sea to-morrow," said I 

Rogers stared at me. His loose mouth quivereo^ 
like that of a child preparing to cry. 

"We can't possibly stay there, sir," he remonstrated. 

"IF« are not going to try," I retorted. "I'm going 
by myself." 

His face brightened. Almost cheerfully he assured 
me that I should find nothing to eat in Mmglebed. 

"You can amuse yoiurself," said I, "by sending me 
down a daily hamper of provisions." 

"There isn't even a church," he continued. 

"Then you can send me down a tin one from Hum- 
phreys'. I believe they can supply one with every- 
thing from a tin rabbit-hutch to a town hall." 

He sighed and departed, and the next day I found 
myself here, in Muiglebed-on-Sea. 

On a miurky, sullen November day Muiglebed exhibits 
unimagined horrors of scenic depravity. It snarls at 
you malignantly. It is like a bit of waste land in Ge- 
henna. There is a lowering, soap-suddy thing a mile 
away from the more or less dry land which local ig- 
norance and superstition call the sea. The interim 
is mud — oozy, brown, malevolent mud. Sometimes 
it seems to heave as if with the myriad bodies of slim) 
crawling eels and worms and snakes. A few foul boati 
lie buried in it. 

Here and there, on land, a surly inhabitant spit 
into it. If you address him he snorts at you unin 
telligibly. If you turn your back to the sea you ar^ v 




SIMON THE JESTER 3 

met by a prospect of unimagined despair. There are 
no trees. The country is flat and barren, A dismal 
creek runs miles inland — ^an estuary fed by the River 
Murgle. A few battered cottages, a general shop, a 
couple of low public-houses, and three perky red-brick 
villas all in a row form the city, or town, or village, or 
what you will, of Murglebed-on-Sea. Renniker is a 
wonderful man. 

I have rented a couple of furnished rooms in one of 
the villas. It has a decayed bit of front garden in which 
a gnarled, stimted stick is planted, and it is called The 
Laburnums. My landlord, the owner of the villas, is 
a builder. What profit he can get from bifilding in Mur- 
glebed. Heaven alone knows; but, as he mounts a bicycle 
in the morning and disappears for the rest of the day, 
I presume he careers over the waste, building as he goes. 
In the evenings he gets drunk at the Red Cow; so I 
know little of him, save that he is a red-faced man, with a 
moustache like a tooth-brush and two great hands like 
hams. 

His wife is taciturn almost to dumbness. She is a 
thick-set, black-haired woman, and looks at me dis- 
approvi]]^y out of the comer of her eye as if I were a 
blackbeetle which she would like to squash under foot. 
She tolerates me, however, on accoimt of the tongues 
and other sustenance sent by Rogers from Benoist, 
of which she consumes prodigious quantities. She 
wonders, as far as the power of wonder is given to her 
dull brain, what on earth I am doing here. I see her 
wUspering to her friends as I enter the house, and I 
know they are wondering what I am doing here. The 
whole village regards me as a humourous zoological 
freak, and wonders what I am doing here among normal 
human beings. 

And what am I doing here — I, Simon de Gex, M.P., 
the spoilt darling of fortune, as my opponent in the 



{ 



4 SIMON THE JESTER 

Labour interest called me during the last eleaoi^ 
campaign? My disciple and secretary, young D^ 
Kynnersley, the only mortal besides Rogers who knov 
my whereabouts, trembles for my reason. In the ey^ 
of the exceUent Rogers I am horn-mad. What i^ 
constituents would think did they see me taking th 
muddy air on a soggy afternoon, I have no conception 
Dale keeps them at bay. He also baffles the curiosit; 
of my sisters, and by his diplomacy has sent Eleano 
Faversham on a huffy trip to Sicily. She cannot un 
derstand why I bury myself in bleak solitude, insteax 
of making cheerful holiday among the oranges anc 
lemons of the South. 

Eleanor is a girl with a thousand virtues, each o 
which she expects to find in coimterpart in the man t< 
whom she is affianced. Until a week or two ago ] 
actually thought myself in love with Eleanor. Ther 
seemed a whimsical attraction in the idea of marryin] 
a girl with a thousand virtues. Before me lay the plea 
sant prospect of reducing them — say, ten at a time- 
until I reached the limit at which life was possible 
and then one by one imtil life became entertaininf 
I admired her exceedingly — a strapping, deep-cheste< 
healthy English girl who looked you straight in the ey< 
and gripped you fearlessly by the hand. 

My friends "lucky-dog'd" me imtil I began to smii 
to myself at my own good fortune. She visited tl\ 
constituency and comported herself as if she had bee^ 
a Membei^s wife since infancy, thereby causing mj 
heart to swell with noble pride. This unparaUelec 
yoimg person compelled me to take my engagement 
almost seriously. If I shot forth a jest, it struck againsl 
a virtue and fell blunted to the earth. Indeed, ever 
now I am sorry I can't marry Eleanor. But marriagi 
is out of the question. 

I have been told by the highest medical authorities 




SIMON THE JESTER 5 

that I may manage to wander in the flesh about this 
planet for another six months. After that I shall have 
to do what wandering I yearn for through the medium 
of my ghost. There is a certain humourousness in the 
prospect. Save for an occasional pain somewhere 
inside me, I am in the most robust health. 

But this same little pain has been diagnosed by the 
Faculty as the symptom of an obscure disease. An 
operation, they tell me, would kill me on the spot. What 
it is called I cannot for the life of me remember. They 
gave it a kind of lingering name, which I wrote down on 
my shirt-cuflf. 

The name or characteristics of the thing, however, 
do not matter a fig. I have alwa3rs hated people who 
talked about their insides, and I am not going to talk 
about mine, even to myself. Clearly, if it is only going 
to last me six months, it is not worth talking about. 
But the quaint fact of its brief diuration is worth the 
attention of a contemplative mind. 

It is in order perfectly to focus this attention that I 
have come to Murglebed-on-Sea. Here I am alone with 
the murk and the mud and my own indrawn breath of 
life. There are no flowers, blue sky, smiling eyes, and 
dainty faces — ^none of the adventitious distractions of 
the earth. There are no Blue-books. Before the 
Faculty made their jocular pronouncement I had been 
filling my head with statistics on pauper Iimacy so as to 
please my constituency, in which the rate has increased 
alarmingly of late years. Perhaps that is why I found 
myself their representative in Parliament. I was to 
father a Bill on the subject next session. Now the 
labour will fall on other shoulders. I interest myself 
in pauper lunacy no more. A man requires less flippant 
occupation for the premature sunset of his days. Well, 
in Murglebed I can think, I can weigh the pros and 
cans of exbtence with an even mind, I can accustom 











si*";:s> »^?v "^^ 



^^""^ 




SIMON THE JESTER 7 

trous than those of an evil one. But if a man is going 
to die, he can do good with impunity. He can simply 
wallow in practical virtue. When the boomerang of 
his bene&cence comes back to hit him on the head — he 
worit he there to feel it. He can thus hoist Destiny with 
its own petard, and, besides being eumoirous, can spend 
a month or two in a peculiarly diverting manner. The 
more I think of the idea the more am I in love with it. 
I am going to have a seraph of a time. I am going to 
play the archangel. 

I shall alwa)rs have pleasant memories of Murglebed. 
Such an idea could not have germinated in any other 
atmosphere. In the scented groves of simny lands 
there would have been sown Seeds of Regret, which 
would have blossomed eventually into Flowers of De- 
spair. I should have gone about the world, a modem 
Admetus, snivelling at my accursed luck, without even 
the chance of persuading a soft-hearted Alcestis to die 
for me. I should have been a dismal nuisance to society. 

"Bless you," I cried this afternoon, waving, as I 
leaned against a post, my hand to the ambient mud, 
"Renniker was wrong! You are not a God-forsaken 
place. You are impregnated with divine inspiration." 

A muddy man in a blue jersey and filthy beard who 
occupied the next post looked at me and spat con- 
temptuously. I laughed. 

"If you were Marcus Aurelius," said I, "I would 
make a joke — a short life and an eumoiry one — and 
he would have looked as pained as you." 

"What?" he bawled. He was to windward of me. 

I knew that if I repeated my observation he would 
ofiFer to fight me. I approached him suavely. 

"I was wondering," I said, "as it's impossible to 
strike a match in ttus wind, whether you would let me 
light my pipe from yours." 

"It's empty," he growled. 



« SIMON THE JESTER 

^^Take a fill from my pouch/* said I. 

The mud-turtle loaded his pipe, handed me my pouch 
without acknowledgment^ stuck Us pipe in his breeches 
pockety spat again, and, deliberately turning his back on 
me, lounged off to another post on a remoter and less 
lunatic-ridden portion of the shore. Again I laughed, 
feeling, as the poet did with the daffodils, that one could 
not but be gay in such a jocimd company. 

There are no amenities or urbanities of life in Mur- 
glebed to choke the growth of the Idea. This evening 
it flourishes so exceedingly that I think it safe to trans- 
plant it in the alien soil of Q 3, The Albany, where the 
good Rogers must be leading an idle existence pecu- 
liarly deleterious to his morals. 

This gives one furiously to think. One of the respon- 
sibilities of eumoiriety must be the encouragement and 
development of virtue in my manservant. 

Also in my young friend and secretary. Dale Kyn- 
nersley. He is more to me than Rogers. I may con 
fess that, so long as Rogers is a sober, honest, me-fea' 
ing valet, in my heart of hearts I don't care a hai 
about Rogers's morab. But about those of Dale Ky 
nersley I do. I care a great deal for his career 8 
happiness. I have a notion that he is erring after stra* 
goddesses and neglecting the little girl who is in love t 
him. He must be delivered. He must marry M/ 
EUerton, and the two of them must bring lots of 
pable, clear-eyed Kynnersleys into the world. I 
to be their ghostly godfather. 

Then there's Eleanor Faversham — but if I bq 
draw up a programme I shall lose that sponf 
of effort which, I take it, is one of the chief cha 
dealing unto oneself a happy lot and portior 
my soul abhors tabulation. It would make e 
months' life as jocular as Bradshaw's Railway 
or the dietary of a prison. I prefer to look on 




SIMON THE JESTER 9 

before me as a high adventure, and with that prospect 
in view I propose to jot down my experiences from 
time to time, so that when I am wandering, a pale 
shade by Acheron, young Dale Kynnersley may have 
not only documentary evidence wherewith to convince 
my friends and relations that my latter actions were 
not those of a lunatic, but also, at the same time, an 
up-to-date version of Jeremy Taylor's edifying though 
humour-lacking treatise on the art of dying, which 
I am sorely tempted to label "The Rule and Example 
of Eumoiriety." I shall resist the temptation, how- 
ever. Dale K)mnersley — such is the ignorance of the 
new generation — ^would have no sense of the aUusion. 
He would shake his head and say, " Dotty, poor old chap, 
dotty!" I can hear him. And if, in order to prepare 
him, I gave him a copy of the " Meditations," he would 
fling the book across the room and qualify Marcus 
Aurelius as a "rotter." 

Dale is a very shrewd fellow, and will make an ad- 
mirable legislator when his time comes. Although his 
highest intellectual recreation is reiterated attendance 
at the musical comedy that has caught his fancy for 
the moment and hid favourite literature the sporting 
pages of the daily papers, he has a curious feline pounce 
on the salient facts of a political situation, and can thread 
the mazes of statistics with the certainty of a Hampton 
Court guide. His enthusiastic researches (on my 
behalf) into pauper lunacy are remarkable in one so 
young. I foresee him an invaluable chairman of com- 
mittee. But he will never become a statesman. He 
has too passionate a faith in facts and figures, and has 
not cultivated a sense of humour at the expense of the 
philosophers. Young men who do not read them lose 
a great deal of fun. 

Well, to-morrow I leave Murglebed for ever: it has 
my benison. Democritus returns to London. 



CHAPTER n 

I WAS at breakfast on the morning after my arrival in 
London^ when Dale Kynnersley rushed in and seized 
me violently by the hand. 

"By Jove, here you are at last!" 

I smoothed my crushed fingers. "You have such a 
vehement manner of proclaiming the obvious, my dear 
Dale." 

"Oh, rotl" he said. "Here, Rogers, give me some 
tea — ^and I think I'll have some toast and marmalade." 

"Haven't you breakfasted?" 

A cloud overspread his ingenuous coimtenance. 

"I came down late, and everything was cold and 
mother was on edge. The girls are always doing the 
wrong things and I never do the right ones — ^you know 
the mater — so I swallowed a tepid kidney and rushed 
off." 

"Save for her worries over you urchins," said I, "I 
hope Lady Kynnersley is well?" 

He filled his mouth with toast and marmalade, and 
nodded. He is a good-looking boy, four-and-twenty 
— ^idyllic age! He has sleek black hair brushed back 
from his forehead over his head, an olive complexion, 
and a keen, open, clean-shaven face. He wore a dark- 
brown lounge suit and a wine-coloiu^ tie, and looked 
immaculate. I remember him as the grubbiest little 
wretch that ever disgraced Harrow. 

He swallowed his mouthful and drank some tea. 
Recovered your sanity?" he asked. 
The dangerous symptoms have passed over/' 
replied. " I undertake not to bite." 

lO 



it 




SIMON THE JESTER ii 

He regaxded me as though he were not quite certain^ 
and asked in his pronounless way whether I was glad to 
be back in London. 

"Yes," said I. "Rogers is the only human creature 
who can properly wax the ends of my moustache. It 
got horribly limp in the air of Murglebed. That is 
the one and only disadvantage of the place." 

"Doesn't seem to have done you much good," he 
remarked, scanning me critically. "You are as white 
as you were before you went away. Why the blazes 
you didn't go to Madeira, or the South of France, or 
South Africa I can't imagine." 

"I don't suppose you can," said I. "Any news?" 

"I should think I have! But first let me go through 
the appointments." 

He consulted a pocket-book. On December 2nd I 
was to dine with Tanners' Company and reply to the 
toast of "The House of Commons." On the 4th my 
constituency claimed me for the opening of a bazaar at 
Wymington. A little later I was to speak somewhere 
m the North of England at a by-election in support of 
the party candidate. 

"It will be fought on Tariff Reform, about which I 
know nothing," I objected. 

"I know everything," he declared. "I'll see you 
through. You must buck up a bit, Simon, and get your 
name better known about the country. And this brings 
me to my news. I was talking to Raggles the other day 
^he dropped a hint, and Raggles's hints are jolly well 
worth whUe picking up. Just come to the front and 
show yourself, and there's a place in the Ministry." 

"Ministry?" 

"Sanderson's going." 

"Sanderson?" I queried, interested, in spite of myself, 
m these puerilities. " What's the matter with him ? " 

"Swelled head. There have been awful rows — ^this 



12 SIMON THE JESTER 

is ccmfideatial — and he's got the hump. Thinks he 
ought to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or at 
least First Lord, instead of an Under Secretaty. So 
he's gcnng to chuck it, before he gets the chuck, himsell 

"I perceive," said I, "that your conveisational Eng- 
lish style is abominable." 

He lit 8 cigarette and continued, loftily taking do 
notice of my rebuke. 

"There's _bound to be a vacancy. Why shouldn't 
you fill it? They seem to want you. You're miles 
away over the heads of the average solemn duffers who 
get office." 

I bowed acknowledgment of his tribute. 

"Well, you will buck up and try for it, won't you? 
Fm awfully proud of you already, but I should go off 
my head with joy if you were in the Ministry." 

I met his honest young eyes as well as I could. How 
was I going, to convey to his candid intelligence the 
fact of my speedy withdrawal from political life without 
shattering h^ illusions? Besides, his devotion touched 
me, and his generous aspirations were so futile. Office 
It was in my grasp. Raggles, with his linger alwaj 
on the pulse of the party machine, was tthe last mt 
in the world to talk nonsense. I only had to " buck up 
Yet by the time Sanderson sends in his resignation 
the King of England, I shall have sent in mine to ' 
King of Hosts, I moved slightly in my chair, am 
twinge of the little psun inade brought a gasp to 
throat. But I felt grateful to it. It was saving 
from an unconscionable deal of worry. Fancy f 
to a confotmded office every morning like a clerk i) 
Cityl I were happier at peace. I rose and wanner 
self by the fire. Dale regarded me uncomprehend 

"You look as if the prospect bored you to tear 
thought you would be delighted." 




SIMON THE JESTER 13 

" Vanilas vanikUum" said I. " Omnia vanitas.^ 

"Rot!" said Dale. 

"It's true." 

"I must fetch Eleanor Faversham back from Sidly," 
said Dale. 

"DonVsaidl. 

"Well, I give you up," he declared, pushing his chair 
from the table and swinging one leg across the other. 
I leaned forward and scrutinised his ankles. 

"What are you looking at?" 

"There must be something radically wrong with 
you, Dale," I miumiured sympathetically. "It is part 
of the religion of your generation to wear socks to match 
your tie. To-day your tie is wine-coloured and your 
socks are green ^" 

"Good Lord," he cried, "so they are! I dressed my- 
self anyhow this morning." 

"What's wrong with you?" 

He threw his cigarette impatiently into the fire. 

"Every infernal thing that can possibly be. Every- 
thing's rotten — but I've not come here to talk about 
myself." 

"\\Tiynot?" 

"It isn't the game. Fm here on your business, which 
is ever so much more important than mine. Where are 
this morning's letters?" 

I pointed to an unopened heap on a writing-table 
at the end of the room. He crossed and sat down be- 
fore them. Presently he turned sharply. 

"You haven't looked through the envelopes. Here 
is one from Sicily." 

I took the letter from him, and sighed to myself as 
I read it. Eleanor was miserable. The Sicilians were 
dirty. The Duomo of Palermo did not come up to her 
expectations. The Mobray-Robertsons, with whom she 
travelled, quarrelled with their food. They had never 



( 



14 SIMON THE JESTER 

even heard of Theocritus. She had a cold in her 
and was utterly at a loss to explain my attitude. 1 
fore she was coming back to London. 

I wish I could find her a nice tame husband wb 
heard of Theocritus. It would be such a good thii 
everybody, husband included. For, I repeat, Elea 
a young woman of fine character, and the man to ^ 
she gives her heart will be a fortxmate feUow. 

While I was reading the letter and meditating 
with my back to the fire. Dale plunged into the i 
ing's correspondence with an air of enjoyment, 
is the astonishing thing about him. He loves 
The more I give him to do the better he likes it. 
cronies, who in raiment, manners, and tastes 
from him no more than a row of pins di£fers fr 
stray brother, regard a writing-chair as a med 
instrument of torture, and faint at the sight of 
They will put themselves to all kinds of physica 
pecuniary inconvenience in order to avoid regulai 
ployment. They arc the tramps of the fashio 
world. But in vain do they sing to Dale of the 
of silk-hatted and patent-leather-booted vagaboi 
and deride his habits of industry; Dale turns a 
ear to them and urges on his strenuous career. R< 
coming in to clear away the breakfast things, wa 
spatched by my young friend to fetch a portfolio 
the hall. It contained, he informed me, the unansi 
letters of the past fortnight with which he had i 
himself unqualified to deal. He grasped the i 
bundle of correspondence, and invited me to f 
him to the library and start on a solid morning's ' 
I obeyed meekly. He sat down at the big table, arrs 
the pile in front of him, took a pencil from the tray 
began: 

"This is from Finch, of the Universal Review" 

1 put my hand on his shoulder. 




SIMON THE JESTER 15 

''Tell liim, my boy, that it's against my custom to 
breakfast at afternoon tea, and that I hope his wife 
is well.*' 

At his look of bewilderment I broke into a laugL 

"He wants me to write a dull article for his stupid 
paper, doesn't he?" 

"Yes; on Poor Law Administration." 

"Fm not going to do it. I'm not going to do any- 
thing these people ask me. Say 'No, no, no, no,' to 
everybody." 

"In Heaven's name, Simon," he cried, laying down 
his pencil, "what has come over you?" 

" Old age," said I. 

He uttered his usual interjection, and added that I 
was only thirty-seven. 

"Age is a relative thing," I remarked. "Babes of 
five have been known to die of senile decay, and I have 
seen irresponsible striplings of seventy." 

"I really think Eleanor Faversham had better come 
back from Sicily." 

I tapped the letter still in my hand. " She's coming." 

"I'm joUy glad to hear it. It's all my silly fault 
that she went away. I thought she was getting on 
yoiu: nerves. But you want pulling together. That 
confounded place you've been to has utterly upset you." 

"On the contrary," said I, "it has steadied and 
amplified my conception of sublunary a£fairs. It has 
shown me that motley is a much more profitable wear 
than the edged toga of the senator " 

"Oh, for God's sake, dry up," cried young England, 
'*and tell me what answers I'm to give these people!" 

He seemed so earnest about it that I humoured him; 
and my correspondents seemed so earnest that I hu- 
moured them« But it was a grim jest. Most of the 
matters with which I had to deal appeared so trivial. 
Only here and there did I find a chance for eumoiriety. 



i6 SIMON THE JESTER 

The Wymington Hosiutal applied for their aniiual 
donation. 

" You generally give a tenner/* said Dale. 

**This time I'll give them a couple of hundred," said I. 

Dale earmarked the amoimt wonderingly; but when 
I ordered him to send five pounds apiece to the authors 
of various b^^g letters he argued vehemently and 
quoted the Charity Organisation Society. 

" They're frauds, all of them," he maintained. 

"Th^re poor necessitous devils, at any rate," said 
I, " and they want the money more than I do." 

This was a truth whose significance Dale was far 
from realising. Of what value, indeed, is money to 
me? There is none to whom I can usefully bequeath 
my little fortime, my sisters having each married rich 
men. I shall not need even Charon's obolus when 
I am dead, for we have ceased to believe in him — ^which 
is a pity, as the trip across the Styx must have been 
picturesque. Why, then, should I not deal myself 
a happy lot and portion by squandering my money 
benevolently during my lifetime? 

It behooves me, however, to walk warily in this as in other 
matters, for if my actions too closely resemble those of a 
lunatic at large, trustees may be appointed to administer 
my affairs, which would frustrate my plans entirely. 

When my part in the morning's work was over, J 
informed my secretary that I would go out and tak 
the air till lunch-time. 

"If you've nothing better to do," said he, "you mig^ 
run round to Eccleston Square and see my mother." 

"For any particular reason?" 

"She wants to see you. Home for inebriate par 
or something. Gave me a message for you this momi' 

" m wait," said I, " on Lady Kynnerdey with pleaf 

I went out and walked down the restful covere 
oi the Albany to the Piccadilly entrance, and 




SIMON THE JESTER 17 

my taking of the air. It was a soft November day, 
full of blue misty and invested with a dying grace by a 
pale sunshine struggling through thin, grey rain-cloud. 
It was a faded lady of a day — a lady of waxen cheeks, 
attired in pearl-grey and old lace, her dim eyes illumined 
by a last smile. It gave an air of imreality to the per- 
spective of tall biuldingSy and treated with indulgent 
irony the passing show of humans — on foot, on onmi- 
busesy in cabs and motors — ^turning them into shadow 
shapes tending no whither. I laughed to myself. They 
all fancied themselves so real. They all had schemes 
in their heads, as if they were going to live a thousand 
years. I walked westwards past the great dubs, 
moralising as I went, and feeling the reaction from the 
excitement of Murglebed-on-Sea. I looked up at one 
of my own dubs, a comfortable resting-place, and it 
struck me as possessing more attractions than the family 
vault in Highgate Cemetery. An acquaintance at the 
window waved his hand to me. I thought him a lucky 
beggar to have that window to stand by when the street 
win be flooded with siunmer simshine and the trees 
in the Green Park opposite wave in their verdant 
bravery. A little further a radiant being, all chiffons and 
millinery, on her way to Bond Street for more millinery 
and chiffons, smiled at me and put forth a delicately- 
gloved hand. 

"Oh, Mr. de Gex, you're the very man I was longing 
to see!" 

"How simply are some hiunan aspirations satisfied!'' 
said I. ^ 

"Farfax" — ^that's her husband, Farfax Glenn, a' 
Member on my side of the House — "Farfax and I are. 
noaking plans already for the E^ter recess. We are 
gomg to motor to Athens, and you must come with us. 
You can tell us all about everything as we pass by." 

I looked grave. " Easter is late next year." 






'S.o*'''*". „^4X.„ 












^^^ 



^yonn 




SIMON THE JESTER 19 

has childien in fits of absent-mindedness, and to whom 
tbdr enstence is a perpetual shock. Her main idea 
in marrying the late Sir Thomas Kynnersley was to 
associate herself with his political and philanthropic 
schemes. She is the bom committee woman, to whom 
a home represents a place where one sleeps and eats 
in order to maintain the strength required for the per- 
formance of committee duties. Her children have 
always been outside the sphere of her real interests 
but, a£Elicted, as such women are, with chronic inflam- 
mation of the conscience, she had devoted the most 
scrupulous care to their upbringing. She formed her- 
self into a sodety for the protection of her own chil- 
dren, and managed them by means of a committee, 
which consisted of herself, and of which she was the 
honorary secretary. She drew up articles of asso- 
ciation and regulations. If Dale contracted measles, 
she applied by-law 17. K Janet slapped Dorothy, 
by-law 32 was brought into play. When Dale clamoured 
for a rocking-horse, she foimd that the articles of as- 
sociation did not provide for imaginative equitation. 
As the children grew up, the committee had from time 
to time to revise the articles and submit them to the 
general body for approval. There were many meetings 
before the new sections relating to a University career 
for the boy and the coming out for the girls were satis- 
factorily drafted. Once given the effect of law, how- 
ever, there was no app)eal against these provisions. Both 
committee and general body were powerless. Dale 
certainly owed his methodical habits to his mechanical 
training, but whence he derived and how he main- 
tained his exuberance and spontaneity has often puz- 
zled me. He himself accounts for it on the score of 
heredity, in that an ancestress of bis married a high- 
wayman who was hanged at Tyburn under William 
and Maiy. 



20 SIMON THE JESTER 

In person Lady Kynnersley is lean and blanched a^mr^j 
grey-haired. She wears gold spectacles, which stSLmid 
out oddly against the thin whiteness of her face; sA^ 
is still a handsome, distinguished woman, who cai^ 
have, when she chooses, a most gracious manner. A^^ 
I, worldling and jester though I am, for some mys-^ 
terious reason have found favour in the lady's eyes^ 
she manifests this graciousness whenever we foregather. 
Ergo, I like Lady Kyimersley, and would put myself 
to much inconvenience in order to do her a service. 

She kept me waiting in the drawing-room but 
a minute before she niade her appearance, grasped 
my hand, proclaimed my goodness in responding so 
soon to her call, bade me sit down on the sofa by her 
side, inquired after my health, and, the gods of polite- 
ness being propitiated, plunged at once into the midst 
of matters. 

Dale was going downhill headlong to Gadarene ca- 
tastrophe. He had no eyes or ears or thoughts for 
any one in the world but for a certain Lola Brandt, a 
brazen creature from a circus, the shape of whose limbs 
was the common knowledge of mankind from Dublin 
to Yokohama, and whose path by sea and land, from 
Yokohama to Dublin, was strewn with the bodies of 
her victims. With this man-eating tigress, declared 
Lady Kynnersley, was Dale infatuated. He scorched 
himself morning, noon, and night in her devastating 
presence. Had cut himself adrift from home, from 
society. Had left trailing about on his study table 
a jeweller's bill for a diamond bracelet. Was com- 
mitting follies that made my brain reel to hear. Had 
threatened, if worried much longer, to marry the Scarlet 
One incontinently. Heaven knew, cried Lady Kynnersley, 
how many husbands she had already — scattered along 
the track between Dublin and Yokohama. There was 
no doubt about it. Dale was hurtling down to ever- 




SIMON THE JESTER 21 

lasdng bonfire. She looked to me to hold out the re- 
straining hand. 

"You have already spoken to Dale on the subject?" 
I askedy mindful of the inharmonious socks and tie. 

"I can talk to him of nothing else," said Lady Kyn- 
nersley desperately. 

"That's a pity," said I. "You should talk to him 
of Heaven, or pigs, or Babylonic cuneiform — an)rthing 
but Lola Brandt. You ought to go to work on a dif- 
ferent s)rstem." 

"But I haven't a system at all," cried the poor lady. 
"How was I to foresee that my only son was going 
to fall in love with a circus rider? These are contin- 
gencies in life for which one, with all the thought in 
the worid, can ntiake no provision. I had arranged, 
as you know, that he should marry Maisie EUerton, as 
charming a girl as ever there was. Isn't she? And 
an independent fortune besides." 

"A rosebud wrapped in a gold leaf," I murmiu^ed. 

"Now he's breaking the child's heart ^" 

"There was never any engagement between them, 
I am sure of that," I remarked. 

"There wasn't. But I gave her to imderstand it was 
a settled affair — ^merely a question of Dale speaking. 
And, instead of speaking, he will have nothing to do 
with her, and spends all his time — and, I suppose, though 
I don't like to refer to it, all his money — ^in the society 
of this unmentionable woman." 

" Is she really so — so red as she is painted ?" I asked. 

"She isn't painted at all. That's where her artful 
and deceitful devilry comes in ^" 

"I suppose Dale," said I, "declares her to be an angel 
of light and purity ? " 

"An angel on horseback! WTioever heard of such a 
thing?" 

"It's the name of rather a fiery savoiuy," said I. 



22 SIMON THE JESTER 

"In a dicus!^ she continued. 

"Well," said I, "the ring of a drcus is not essentially 
one of the circles in Dante's Inferno." 

" Of course, my dear Simon," she said, with some im- 
patience, "if you defend him ^" 

I hastened to interrupt her. "I don't. I think he 
is an egregious young idiot; but before taking action 
it's well to get a clear idea of the facts. By the way, 
how do you know she's not painted?" 

"Fve seen her — seen her with my own eyes in Dale's 
company — at the Savoy. He's there supping with her 
every night. ' General Lamont told me. I wouldn't 
believe it — Dale flaunting about in public vnth her. 
The General offered to take me there after the inau- 
gural meeting of the International Aid Society at Gros- 
venor House. I went, and saw them together. I shall 
never forget the look in the boy's eyes till my dying day. 
She has got him body and soul. One reads of such 
things in the poets, one sees it in pictures; but I've 
never come across it in real life — never, never. It's 
dreadful, horrible, revolting. To think that a son of 
mine, brought up from babyhood to calculate all his 
actions with mathematical precision, should be guilty 
of this profligacy! It's driving me mad, Simon; it 
really is. I don't know what to do. Fve come to the 
end of my resources. It's your turn now. The boy 
worships you." 

A wild appeal burned in her eyes and was refracted 
oddly through her near-sighted spectacles. I had never 
seen her betray emotion before during all the years of 
our friendship. The look and the tone of her voice movipd 
me. I expressed my sympathy and my readiness to do 
anything in my power to snatch the infatuated boy 
from the claw and fang of the syren and hale him to 
the forgiving feet of Maisie Ellerton. Indeed, such a 
chivalrous adventure had vaguely passed through my mind 




SIMON THE JESTER 23 

during my exalted mood at Murglebed-on-Sea. But then 
I knew little beyond the fact that Dale was fluttering 
round an undesirable candle. Till now I had no idea of 
the extent to which his wings were singed. 

"Hasn't Dale spoken to you about this creature?" 
his mother asked. 

"Yoimg men of good taste keep these things from 
their elders, my dear Lady Kynnersley," said L 

"But you knew of it?" 

"In a dim sort of way." 

" Oh, Simon '' 

"The baby boys of Dale's set regard taking out the 
chorus to supper as a solemn religious rite. They 
wouldn't think themselves respectable if they didn't. 
Fve done it myself — in moderation — ^when I was very 
yoimg.'* 

"Men are mysteries," sighed Lady Kjmnersley. 

"Please regard them as such," said I, with a laugh, 
"and let Dde alone. Allow him to do whatever ir- 
rational thing he likes, save bringing the lady here to 
tea. K you try to tear him away from her he'll only 
cling to her the closer. K you trumpet abroad her 
infamy he'll proclaim her a slandered and martyred 
saint. Leave him to me for the present." 

"Fll do so gladly," said Lady Kynnersley, with sur- 
prising meekness. "But you will bring him back, 
Simon? Fve arranged for him to marry Maisie. I 
can't have my plans for his future upset." 

By-law 379! Dear, excellent, but wooden-headed 
woman I 

"I have your promise, haven't I?" she said, her hand 
in mine. 

"You have," said I nobly. 

But how in the name of Astaroth Fm going to keep 
it I haven't the remotest conception. 



CHAPTER m 

Soke letters in Dale's round handwriting laj on the 
library table awaiting my signature. Dale himself 
had gone. A lady had called for himi said Rogers, 
in an electric brougham. As my chambers are on the 
second floor and the staircase half-way down the arcade, 
Rogers's detailed information surprised me. I asked 
him how he knew. 

"A chauffeur in livery, sir, came to the door and said 
that the brougham was waiting for Mr. Kynnersley." 

"I don't see how the lady came in," I remarked. 

"She didn't, sir. She remained in the brougham," 
said Rogers. 

So Lola Brandt keeps an electric brougham. 

I limched at the club, and turned up the article "Lola 
Brandt" in the living encyclopaedia — that was my friend 
Reimiker. The wonderful man gave me her history 
from the cradle to Cadogan Gardens, where she now 
resides. I must say that his details were rather vague. 
She rode in a circus or had a talking horse — he was 
not quite sure; and concerning her conjugal or extra- 
conjugal heart affairs he admitted that his informa- 
tion was either unauthenticated or conjectural. At 
any rate, she had not a shred of reputation. And 
she didn't want it, said Reimiker; it would be as much 
use to her as a diving suit. 

" She has young Dale Kyimersley in tow," he remarked. 

"So I gather," said L "And now can you tell me 
something else? What is the present state of political 
parties in Guatemala?" 

I was not in the least interested in Guatemala; but I 

24 



SIMON THE JESTER 25 

did not care to discuss Dale with Renniker. When 
he had completed his sketch of affairs in that ob- 
scure republic, I thanked him politely and ordered 
coSee. 

Feeling in a gregarious, companionable humour — 
I have had enough solitude at Murglebed to last me 
the rest of my short lifetime — I went later in the 
afternoon to Sussex Gardens to call on Mrs. Ellerton. 
It was her day at home, and the drawing-room was 
filled with chattering people. I stayed until most of 
them were gone, and then Maisie dragged me to the 
inner room, where a table was strewn with the wreck- 
age of tea. 

"I haven't had any," she said, grasping the teapot 
and pouring a treacly liquid into a cup. "You must 
have some more. Do you like it black, or with milk?'' 

She is a dainty slip of a girl, with deep grey eyes and 
wavy brown hair and a sea-shell complexion. I ab- 
sently swallowed the abomination she handed me, for 
I was looking at her over the teacup and wondering 
how an exquisite-minded gentleman like Dale could 
forsake her for a Lola Brandt. It was not as if Maisie 
were an empty-headed, empty-natured little girl. She 
is a young person of sense, education, and character. 
She aJso adores musical comedy and a band at dinner: 
an excellent thing in woman — ^when she is very yoimg. 

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked. 

"Because, my dear Maisie," said I, "you are good 
to look upon. You are also dropping a hairpin." 

She hastily secured the dangling thing. "I did my 
hair anyhow to-day," she explained. 

Again I thought of Dale's tie and socks. The signs 
of a lover's "careless desolation," described by Rosa- 
lind so minutely, can still be detected in modem youth of 
both sexes. I did not pursue the question, but alluded 
to autumn gaieties. She spoke of them without en- 



26 SIMON THE JESTER 

thusiasm. Miss Somebody's wedding was very dull, 
and Mrs. Somebody Else's dance manned with ^e and 
vacuous dancers. At the Opera the greatest of German 
sopranos sang false. All hmnan institutions had taken 
a crooked turn, and her cat could not be persuaded 
to pay the commonest attention to its kittens. Then 
she asked me nonchalantly: 

"Have you seen an}rthhig of Dale lately?" 

"He was working with me this morning. Fve been 
away, you know." 

"I forgot." 

"When did you last see him?" I asked. 

"Oh, ages ago! He has not been near us for weeks. 
We used to be such friends. I don't think it's very 
polite of him, do you?" 

"I'U order hhn to call forthwith," said I. 

"Oh, please don't! If he won't come of his own 
accord — ^I don't want to see him particularly." 

She tossed her shapely head and looked at me bravely. 

"You are quite right," said I. "Dale's a selfish, 
ill-mannered young cub." 

"He isn't 1" she flashed. "How dare you say such 
things about him!" 

I smiled and took both her hands— one of them held 
a piece of brown bread-and-butter. 

"My dear," said I, "model yovurself on Little Bo- 
Peep. I don't know who gave her the famous bit of 
advice, but I think it was I myself in a pastoral incar- 
nation. I had a woolly doak and a crook, and she 
was like a Dresden china figure — ^the image of you." 

Her eyes swam, but she laughed and said I was good 
to her. I said: 

"The man who wouldn't be good to you is an unhung 
villain." 

Then her mother joined us, and our little ocMifid^itial 
talk came to an end. It was enough, however, to con- 



SIMON THE JESTER 27 

vince me that my poor little Ariadne was shedding many 
desperate tears in secret over her desertion. 

On my way home I looked in on my doctor. His 
name is Hunnington. He grasped me by the hand 
and eagerly inquired whether my pain was worse. I 
said it was not. He professed delight, but looked dis- 
appointed. I ought to have replied in the afl&rmative. 
It is so easy to make others happy. 

I dined, read a novel, and went to sleep in the 
cheerful frame of mind induced by the consciousness 
of having made some little progress on the path of 
eumoiriety. 

The next morning Dale made his customary appear- 
ance. He wore a morning coat, a dark tie, and patent- 
leather boots. 

"Well," said I, "have you dressed more carefully 
to-day?" 

He looked himself anxiously over and inquired whether 
there was anything wrong. I assured him of the im- 
peccability of his attire, and commented on its splendour. 

" Are you going to take Maisie out to lunch ? " 

He started and reddened beneath his dark skin. Be- 
fore he could speak I laid my hand on his shoulder. 

"I'm an old friend, Dale. You mustn't be angry 
with me. But don't you think you're treating Maisie 
rather badly?" 

" You've no right to say so," he burst out hotly. " No 
one has the right to say so. There never was a ques- 
ticMi of an engagement between Maisie and myself." 

"Then there ought to have been," I said judicially. 
"No decent man plays fast and loose with a girl and 
throws her over just at the moment when he ought to 
be asking her to marry him." 

"I suppose my mother's been at you. That's what 
she wanted to see you about yesterday. I wish to God 
she would mind her own business." 



28 SIMON THE JESTER 

"And, afortioriy that I would mind mine?" 

Dale did not reply. For some odd reason he is de- 
votedly attached to me, and respects my opinion on 
worldly matters. He walked to the window and looked 
out. Presently, without turning round, he said: 

"I suppose she has been rubbing it in about Lola 
Brandt?" 

"She did mention the lady's name," said I. "So 
did Renniker at the club. I suppose every one you 
know and many you don't are mentioning it." 

"WeU, what if they are?" 

"Thej^'re creating an atmosphere about your name 
which is scarcely that in which to make an entrance 
into public life." 

Still with his back turned, he morosely informed me 
in his vernacular that he contemplated public life with 
feelings of indifference, and was perfectly prepared 
to at^don his ambitions. I took up my parable, the 
same old parable that wise seniors have preached to 
the deluded young from time immemorial. I have 
seldom held forth so platitudinously even in the House 
of Commons. I spoke as impressively as a bishop. 
In the midst of my harangue he came and sat by the 
library table and rested his chin on his palm, looking 
at me quietly out of his dark eyes. His mildness en- 
couraged me to further efforts. I instanced cases of 
other yoimg men of the world who had gone the way of 
the flesh and had ended at the devil. 

There was Paget, of the Guards, eaten to the bone 
by the Syren — ^not even the gold lace on his uniform 
left. There was Merridew, once the hope of the party, 
now living in ignoble obsciirity with an old and painted 
mistress, whom he detested, but to whom habit and 
sapped will-power kept him in thrall. There was Bui- 
len, who blew his brains out. In a generous glow I 
waxed prophetic and drew a vivid picture of Dale's 



SIMON THE JESTER 29 

moral, mental, physical, financial, and social ruin, and 
finished up 5ii a masterly peroration. 

Then, without moving, he calmly said: 

"My dear Simon, you are talking through your hat!" 

He had allowed me to walk backwards and forwards 
on the hearthrug before a blazing fire, pouring out the 
wealth of my wisdom, experience, and rhetoric for ten 
minutes by the clock, and then coolly informed me that 
I was tallung through my hat. 

I wiped my forehead, sat down, and looked at him 
across the table in surprise and indignation. 

"If you can point out one irrelevant or absurd re- 
mark in my hoinily, Til eat the hat through which you 
say I'm talking." 

"The whole thing is rot from beginning to end!" 
said he. "None of you good people know anything at 
all about Lola Brandt. She's not the sort of woman 
you think. She's quite different. You can't judge 
her by ordinary standards. There's not a woman like 
her in the wide world!" 

I made a gesture of discouragement. The same old 
parable of the wise had evoked the same old retort 
from the deluded young. She was quite different from 
other women. She was misimderstood by the cynical 
and gross-minded world. A heart of virgin purity 
beat beneath her mercenary bosom. Her lurid past 
had been the reiterated martyrdom of a noble nature. 

Golden Age! O Heyday of Illusion! O Swantide 
of Geese! O imutterable silliness of Boyhood! 

"For Heaven's sake, don't talk in that way!" he cried 
(I had been talking that way), and he rose and walked 
like a young tiger about the rooncL "I can't stand 
it. I've gone mad about her. She has got into my 
blood somehow. I think about her all day long, and 

1 can't sleep at night. I would give up any mortal 
thing on earth for her. She is the one woman im the 



30 SIMON THE JESTER 

world for me! She's the dearest, sweetest, tenderest, 
most beautiful creature God ever made!" 

"And you honour and respect her — ^just as you would 
honour and respect Maisie?" I asked quietly. 

"Of course I do!" he flashed. "Don't I tell you 
that you know nothing whatever about her?" She 
is the dearest, sweetest ^" &c., &c. And he con- 
tinued to trumpet forth the Olympian qualities of the 
Syren and his own fervent adoration. I was the only 
being to whom he had opened his heart, and, the flood- 
gates being set free, the torrent burst forth in this tem- 
pestuous and incoherent manner. I let him go on, for 
I thought it did him good; but his rhapsody added 
very little to my information. 

The lady who had "houp-la'd" her way from Dublin 
to Yokohama was the spotless queen of beauty, and Dale 
was frenziedly, idiotically in love with her. That was 
all I could gather. When he had finished, which he 
did somewhat abruptly, he threw himself into a chair 
and took out his dgarette-case with shaky fingers. 

"There. I suppose I've made a damn-fool exhibition 
of myself," he said, defiantly. "What have you got 
to say about it?" 

"Precisely," I replied, "what I said before. I'll 
repeat it, if you like." 

Indeed, what more was there to say for the present 
about the limatic business? I had come to the end of 
my arguments. 

He reflected for a moment, then rose and came over 
to the fireplace. 

"Look here, Simon, you must let me go my own 
way in this. In matters of politics and worldly wisdom 
and social affairs and honourable dealing and all that 
sort of thing I would follow you blindly. You're my 
chief, and a kind of elder brother as well. I would do 
any mortal thing for you. You know that. But you've 



T H F. N -, 'V Y e .- .■ 

P'JBLICL13:-.Ar:V 



T»Lr>'. ** f?"*- 



^ i • « -»*.p 




SIMON THE JESTER 31 

no right to try to guide me in this matter. You know 
no more about it than my mother. You've had no 
experience. You've never let yourself go about a wo- 
man in your life. Lord of Heaven, man, you have 
never begun to know what it means!" 

Oh, dear me! Here was a situation as old as the 
return of the Prodigal or the desertion of the trusting 
village maiden, or any other cliche in the melodrama 
of r^ life. " You are making a fool of yourself," says 
Mentor. "Ah," shrieks . Telemachus, "but you never 
loved! You don't know what love is." 

I looked at him whimsically. 

"Don't I?" 

My thoughts sped back down the years to a garden 
m France. Her name was Clothilde. We met in a 
manner outrageous to Gallic propriety, as I used to 
climb over the garden wall to the peril of my epidermis. 
We loved. We were parted by stem parents — not 
mine — ^and Clothilde was packed ofiF to the good Sisters 
who had previously had care of her education. Now 
she is fat and happy, and the wife of a banker and the 
mother of children. 

But the romance was sad and bad and mad enough 
while it lasted; and when Clothilde was (figuratively) 
dragged from my arms I cursed and swore and out- 
Heroded Herod, played Termagant, and summoned 
the heavens to fall down and crush me miserable be- 
neath their weight. And then her brother challenged 
me to fight a duel, whereupon, as the most worshipped 
of all She's had not received a ha'porth of harm at my 
hands, I called him a silly ass and threatened to break 
his head if he interfered any more in my legitimate 
despair. I smile at it now; but it was real at two-and- 
twenty — ^as real, I take it, as Dale's consuming passion 
for the lady of the circus. 

There was also, I remembered, a certain But 



32 SIMON THE JESTER 

this had nothing to do with Dale. Neither had the 
tragedy of my lost Clothilde. The memories, how- 
ever, brought a wistful touch of sympathy into my 
voice. 

"You soberly think, my dear old Dale, said I, "that 
I know nothing of love and passion and the rest of the 
divine madness?" 

"Fm sure you don't," he cried, with an impatient 
gesture. " If you did, you wouldn't " 

He came to an abrupt and confused halt. 

"I wouldn't— what?" 

"Nothing. I forgot what I was going to say. Let 
us talk of something else." 

"It was on the tip of your impulsive tongue,'* said 
I cheerfully, "to refer to my attitude towards Miss 
Faversham." 

"I'm desperately sorry," said he, reddening. "It 
was impardonable. But how did you guess?" 

I laughed and quoted the Latin tag about the in- 
genuous boy of the ingenuous visage and ingenuous 
modesty. 

"Because I don't feverishly search the postbag for 
a letter from Miss Faversham you conclude I'm a blood- 
less automaton?" 

"Please don't say any more about it, Simon," he 
pleaded in deep distress. 

A sudden idea struck me. I reflected, walked to the 
window, and, having made up my mind, sat down again. 
I had a wieapon to hand which I had overlooked, and 
with the discovery came a weak craving for the boy's 
sympathy. I believe I care more for him than for 
any living creature. I decided to give him some no- 
tion of my position. 

Sooner or later he would have to learn it. 

"I would rather like to tell you something," said I, 
" about my engagement — ^in confidence, of course. When 



SIMON THE JESTER 33 

Eleanor Faversbam comes back I propose to ask her 
to release me from it." 

He drew a long breath. '^ I'm glad. She's an awfully 
nice girly but she's no more in love with you than my 
mother is. But it'll be rather diflBcult, won't it?" 

" I don't think so," I replied, shaking my head. " It's 
a question of health. My doctors absolutely forbid it." 

A look of affectionate alarm sprang into his eyes. 
He broke into sympathy. My health? Why had I 
not told him before? In Heaven's name, what was 
the matter with me? 

"Something silly," said I. "Nothing you need worry 
about on my account. Only I must go piano for the 
rest of my days. Marriage isn't to be thought of. There 
is something else I must tell you. I must resign my 
seat." 

"Resign yoxir seat? Give up Parliament? When?" 

"As soon as possible." 

He looked at me aghast, as if the world were coming 
to an end. 

"We had better concoct an epistle to Raggles this 
morning." 

"But you can't be serious?" 

"I can sometimes, my dear Dale. This is one of the 
afflicting occasions." 

"You out of Parliament? You out of public life? 
It's inomceivable. It's danmable. But you're just 
coming into your own — ^what Raggles said, what I told 
you yesterday. But it can't be. You can hold on. 
m do all the drudgery for you. I'll work night and day." 

And he tramped up and down the room, uttering 
the disconnected phrases which an honest young soul 
unaccustomed to express itself emotionally blurts out 
in moments of deep feeling. 

"It's no use, Dale," said I, "I've got my marching 
orders." 



34 SIMON THE JESTER 

"But why should they come just now?" 

"When the sweets of office are dangling at my lips? 
It's pretty simple." I laughed. "It's one of the little 
ironies that please the high gods so inmiensely. They 
have an elementary sense of humour — ^like that of the 
funny fellow who pulls your chair from imder you and 
shrieks with laughter when you go wallop on to the floor. 
Well, I don't grudge them their amusement. They 
must have a dull time settling mundane affairs, and 
a little joke goes a long way with them, as it does in the 
House of Conmions. Fancy sitting on those green benches 
legislating for all eternity, with never a recess and never 
even a dinner hour! Poor high gods! Let us pity 
them." 

I looked at him and smiled, perhaps a little wearily. 
One can always command one's eyes, but one's lips 
sometimes get out of control. He could not have noticed 
my lips, however, for he cried: 

"By George, you're splendid! I wish I could take 
a knock-out blow like that!" 

"You'll have to one of these days. It's the only 
way of taking it. And now," said I, in a businesslike 
tone, "I've told you all this with a purpose. At Wym- 
ington it will be a case of ^Le Roi est mart. Vive le Roir 
The vacancy will have to be filled up at once. We'll 
have to find a suitable candidate. Have you one in 
your mind?" 

" Not a soul." 

"I have." 

"Who?" 

"You." 

"Me?'* He nearly sprang into the lur with astonish- 
ment. 

"Why not?" 

"They'd never adopt me." 
I think they would," I said. "There are men in 



« 



SIMON THE JESTER 35 

the House as young as you. You're well known at 
Wymington and at headquarters as my right-hand 
man. You've done some speaking — ^you do it rather 
well; it's only your private conversational style that's 
atrocious. You've got a name familiar in public life 
up and down the country, thanks to your father and 
mother. It's a fairly safe seat. I see no reason why 
they shouldn't adopt you. Would you like it?" 

"Like it?" he cried. "Why I'd give my ears for it." 

"Then," said I, pla)dng my winning card, "let us 
hear no more about Lola Brandt." 

He gave me a swift glance, and walked up and down 
the room for a while in silence. Presently he halted 
in front of me. 

"Look here, Simon, you're a beast, but" — he smiled 
frankly at the quotation — "you're a just beast. You 
oughtn't to rub it in like that about Lola until you have 
seen her yourself. It isn't fair." 

"You speak now in language distinctly approaching 
that of reason," I remarked. "What do you want me 
to do?" 

"Come with me this afternoon and see her." 

My yoimg friend had me nicely in the trap. I could 
not refuse. 

"Very well," said I. "But on the distinct under- 
standing " 

"Oh, on any old imderstanding you like!" he cried, 
and darted to the door. 

" Where are you going ? " 

"To ring her up on the telephone and tell her you're 
coming." 

That's the worst of the yoimg. They have such a 
disconcerting manner of clinching one's undertakings. 



CHAPTER IV 

My first impression of Lola Brandt in the dimness of 
the room was that of a lithe panther in petticoats rising 
lazily from the depths of an easy chair. A sinuous 
action of the arm, as she extended her hand to welcome 
me, was accompanied by a curiously flexible turn of 
the body. Her hand as it enveloped, rather than grasped, 
mine seemed boneless but exceedingly powerful. An 
indoor dress of brown and gold striped Indian silk climg to 
her figure, which, largely built, had an appearance of great 
strength. Dark bronze hair and dark eyes, that in the soft 
light of the room glowed with deep gold reflections, com- 
pleted the pantherine suggestion. She seemed to be on the 
verge of thirty. A most dangerous woman, I decided 
— one to be shut up in a cage with thick iron bars. 

"It's charming of you to come. Fve heard so much 
of you from Mr. K)mnersley. Do sit down." 

Her voice was lazy and languorous and caressing like 
the purr of a great cat; and there was something exotic 
in her accent, something seductive, something that 
ought to be prohibited by the police. She sank into 
her low chair by the fire, indicating one for me square 
with the hearthrug. Dale, so as to leave me a fair 
conversational field with the lady, established himself 
on the sofa some distance off, and began to talk with a 
Chow dog, with whom he was obviously on terms of 
familiarity. Madame Brandt made a remark about 
the Chow dog's virtues, to which I politely replied. 
She put him through several tricks. I admired his 
talent. She declared her affections to be divided be- 
tween Adolphus (that was the Chow dog's name) and 

36 



SIMON THE JESTER 37 

a ouistiti, who was confined to bed for the present owing 
to the evil qualities of the November air. For the first 
time I blessed the English climate. I hate little mon- 
keys, I also felt a queer disappointment. A woman 
like that ought to have caught an ourang-outang. 

She guessed my thought in an uncanny manner, and 
smiledy showing strong, white, even teeth-^the most 
marvellous teeth I have ever beheld — so even as to con- 
stitute almost a deformity. 

"Fm fonder of bigger animals," she said. "I was 
bom among them. My father was a hon tamer, so I 
know all the ways of beasts. I love bears — I once 
trained one to drive a cart — but" — ^with a sigh — "you 
can't keep bears in Cadogan Gardens." 

"You may get hold of a human one now and then," 
said Dale. 

"Fve no doubt Madame Brandt could train him to 
dance to whatever tune she played," said I. 

She turned her dark golden eyes lazily, slumberously 
on me. 

"Why do you say that, Mr. de Gex?" 

This was disconcerting. WTiy had I said it? For 
no particular reason, save to keep up a commonplace 
conversation in which I took no absorbing interest. 
It was a direct challenge. Young Dale stopped playing 
with the Chow dog and grinned. It behoved me to say 
something. I said it with a bow and a wave of my hand : 

"Because, though your father was a lion-tamer, your 
mother was a woman." 

She appeared to reflect for a moment; then address- 
ing Dale: 

"The answer doesn't amount to a ha'porth of cats' - 
meat, but you couldn't have got out of it like that." 

I was again disconcerted, but I remarked that he 
would learn in time when my mentorship was over and 
I handed him, a finished product, to society. 



38 SIMON THE JESTER 

"How long will that be?" she asked. 

"I don't know. Are you anxious for his immediate 
perfecting?" 

Her shoulders gave what in ordinary women would 
have been a shrug: with her it was a slow ripple. I 
vow if her neck had been bare one could have seen it 
imdulate beneath the skin. 

"What is perfection?" 

"Can you ask?" laughed Dale. "Behold!" And 
he pointed to me. 

"That's cheap," said the lady. "Fve heard Auguste 
say cleverer thii^s." 

"Who's Auguste?" asked Dale. 

"Auguste," said I, "is the generic name of the down 
in the French Hippodrome." 

"Oh, the Circus!" cried Dale. 

"I'll be glad if you'll teach him to call it the Hippo- 
drome, Mr. de (iex," she remarked, with another of 
her slimiberous glances. 

"That will be one step nearer perfection," said I. 

The short November twilight had deepened into 
darkness; the fire, which was blazing when we entered, 
had settled into a glow, and the room was lit by one 
shaded lamp. To me the dimness was restful, but 
Dale, who, with the crude instincts of youth, loves glare, 
began to fidget, and presently asked whether he might 
turn on the electric light. Permission was given. My 
hostess invited me to smoke and, to hand her a box 
of cigarettes which lay on the mantelpiece, I rose, bent 
over her while she lit her cigarette from my match, 
and, resuming an upright position, became rooted to 
the hearthrug. 

With the flood of illumination, disclosing everything 
that hitherto had been wrapped in shadow and mystery, 
came a shock. 

It was a most extraordinary, perplexing room. The 




SIMON THE JESTER 39 

cheap and the costly, the rare and the common, the 
exquisite and the tawdry jostled one another on walls 
and floor. At one end of the Louis XVI. sofa on which 
Dale had been sitting lay a boating cushion covered 
with a Union Jack, at the other a cushion covered with 
old Moorish embroidery. The chair I had vacated 
I discovered to be of old Spanish oak and stamped 
Cordova leather bearing traces of a coat-of-arms in 
gold. My hostess loxmged in a low characterless seat 
amid a mass of heterogeneous cushions. There were 
many flowers in the room — some in Cloisonne vases, 
others in gimcrack vessels such as are bought at coun- 
try fairs. On the mantelpiece and on tables were 
mingled precious ivories from Japan, trumpery chilets 
from tl|^ T)rrol, choice bits of Sfevres and Venetian 
glass, bottles with ladders and little men inside them, 
vulgar china fowls sitting on eggs, and a thousand 
restless little objects screeching in dumb agony at one 
another. 

The more one looked the more confounded became 
confusion. Lengths of beautifully embroidered Chinese 
silk formed curtains for the doors and windows; but 
they were tied back with cords ending in horrible little 
plush monkeys in lieu of tassels. A Second Empire gilt 
mirror hung over the Louis XVI. sofa, and was flanked 
on the one side by a villainous Gterman print of " The 
Huntsman's Return" and on the other by a dainty 
water-colour. Myriads of photographs, some in frames, 
met the eye everywhere — on the grand piano, on the oc- 
casional tables, on the mantelpiece, stuck obliquely all 
round the Queen Anne mirror above it, on the walls. 
Many of them represented animals — bears and lions 
and pawing horses. Dale's photograph I noticed in a 
silver frame on the piano. There was not a book in 
the place. But in the comer of the room by a further 
wmdow gleamed a large marble Venus of Mlo, charm- 



40 SIMON THE JESTER 

ingly executed, who stood regarding the welter with 
eyes cahn and unconcerned. 

I was aroused from the momentary shock caused by 
the revelation of this eccentric apartment by an im- 
known nauseous flavoiu' in my mouth. I realised it was 
the cigarette to which I had helped myself from the 
beautifully chased silver casket I had taken from the 
mantelpiece. I eyed the thing and concluded it was 
made of the very cheapest tobacco, and was what the 
street urchin calls a "fag." I learned afterwards that 
I was right. She purchased them at the rate of six for 
a penny, and smoked them in enormous quantities. 
For politeness' sake I continued to puff at the unclean 
thing until I nearly made myself sick. Then, simu- 
lating absentmindedness, I threw it into the fire. 

Why, in the sacred name of Nicotine, does a luxuri- 
ous lady like Lola Brandt smoke such imutterable 
garbage? 

On the other hand, the tea which she offered us a few 
minutes later, and begged us to drink without milk, 
was the most exquisite I have tasted outside Russia. 
She informed us that she got it direct from Moscow. 

"I can't stand your black Ceylon tea," she remarked, 
with a grimace. 

And yet she could smoke "fags." I wondered 
what other contradictious tastes she possessed. No 
doubt she could eat blood puddings with relish and 
had a discriminating palate for claret. Truly, a per- 
plexing lady. 

"You must find leisure in London a great change 
after your adventurous career," said I, by way of polite 
conversation. 

"I just love it. I'm as lazy as a cat," she said, set- 
tling with her pantherine grace among the cushions. 
"Do you know what has been my ambition ever since 
I was a kid?" 



SHMON THE JESTER 41 

''Whatever of woman's ambitions you had you must 
have attained/' said I, with a bow. 

''Poohr' she said. "You mean that I can have 
crowds of men falling in love with me. That's rub- 
Ush." She was certainly &ank. ''I meant something 
quite different. I wonder whether you can understand. 
The world used to seem to me divided into two classes 
that never met — ^we performing people and the public, 
the thousand white faces that looked at us and went 
away and talked to other white faces and forgot all about 
performing animals till they came next time. Now I've 
got what I wanted. See ? I'm one of the public." 

"And you love Philistia better than Bohemia?" I 
asked. 

She knitted her brows and looked at me puzzled. 

"If you want to talk to me," she said, "you must 
talk straight. I've had no more education than a tinker's 
dog." 

She made this peculiar annoimcement, not defiantly, 
not rudely, but appealingly, graciously. It was not a 
rebuke for priggishness; it was the unresentable state- 
ment of a fact. I apologized for a lunatic habit of 
speech and paraphrased my question. 

"In a word," cried Dale, coming in on my heels with 
an elucidation of my periphrasis, "what de Gex is driv- 
ing at is — Do you prefer respectability to ramping round ?" 

She turned slowly to him. "My dear boy, when do 
you think I was not respectable?" 

He jumped from the sofa as if the Chow dog had 
bitten him. 

"Good Heavens, I never meant you to take it that 
way!" 

She laughed, stretched up a lazy arm to him, and 
looked at him somewhat quizzically in the face as he 
kissed her finger-tips. Although I could have boxed 
the silly fellow's ears, I vow he did it in a very pretty 



42 SIMON THE JESTER 

fashion. The young man of the day, as a geoerai rule 
has no more notion how to kiss a woman's hand thai 
how to take snuff or dance a pavane. Indeed^ lots o 
them don't know how to kiss a girl at all. 

"My dear," she said. ''I was much more respect 
able sitting on the stage at tea with my horse, Sultan 
than supping with you at the Savoy. You don't knov 
the deadly respectability of most people in the pro 
fession, and the worst of it is that while we're bein{ 
utterly dull and dowdy, the public think we're having 
a devil of a time. So we don't even get the credit o 
our virtues. I prefer the Savoy— and this." She tumec 
to me. "It is nice having decent people to tea. Dc 
you know what I should love? I should love to hav( 
an At Home day — and receive ladies, real ladies. Anc 
I have such a sweet place^ haven't I ?" 

"You have many beautiful things aroimd you," saic 
I truthfully. 

She sighed. "I should like more people to see them.' 

"In fact," said I, "you have social ambitions, Madam< 
Brandt?" 

She looked at me for a moment out of the comer of hei 
eye. 

"Are you skinning me?" she asked. 

Where she had picked up this eccentric metaphor ] 
know not. She had many odd turns of language as yet 
not current among the fashionable classes. I gravel) 
assured her that I was not sarcastic. I commended hei 
praiseworthy aspirations. 

"But," said I innocently, "don't you miss the hare 
training, the physical exercise, the delight of motion 

the excitement, the ?" — my vocabulary failing me. 

I sketched with a gesture the equestrienne's classical 
encouragement to her steed. 

She looked at me uncomprehendingly. 

"The what?" she asked. 



SIMON THE JESTER 43 

" What are you playing at ? " inquired Dale. 

"I was referring to the ring," said I. 

They both burst out laughing, to my discomfiture. 

"What do you take me for? A circus rider? Per- 
forming in a tent and living in a caravan? You think 
I jump through a hoop in tights?" 

"All I can say," I miumured, by way of apology, 
"is that it's a mendacious world. I'm deeply sorry." 

Why had I been misled in this shameful manner? 

Madame Brandt with lazy good nature accepted my 
excuses. 

"Tm what is professionally known as a dompieuse^^^ 
she explained. "Of course, when I was a kid I was 
trained as an acrobat, for my father was poor; but 
when he grew rich and the owner of animals, which he 
did when I was fourteen, I joined him and worked with 
him all over the world until I went on my own. Do 
you mean to say you never heard of me?" 

"Madame Brandt," said I, "the last thing to be 
astonished at is human ignorance. Do you know that 
30 per cent, of the French army at the present day have 
never heard of the Franco-Prussian War?" 

"My dear Simon," cried Dale, "the two things don't 
hang together. The Franco-Prussian War is not ad- 
vertised all over France like Beecham's Pills, whereas 
six years ago you ^couldn't move two steps in London 
without seeing posters of Lola Brandt and her horse 
Sultan." 

"Ah, the horse!" said L "That's how the wicked 
circus story got about." 

" It was the last act I ever did," said Madame Brandt. 
"I taught Sultan — oh, he was a dear, beautiful thing — 
to count and add up and guess articles taken from the 
audience. I was at the Hippodrome. Then at the 
Nouveau Cirque at Paris; I was at St. Petersburg, 
\^enna, Berlin — all over Europe with Sultan." 



44 SIMON THE JESTER 

"And where is Sultan now?" I asked. ^ 

"He is dead. Somebody poisoned him," she replied, 
looking into the iire. After a pause she continued in 
a low voice, singularly like the growl of a wrathful animal, 
"If ever I meet that man alive it will go hard with him." 

At that moment the door opened and the servant 
annoimced: 

"Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos!" 

Whereupon the shortest creature that ever bore so 
lengthy a name, a dwarf not more than four feet high, 
wearing a frock coat and bright yellow gloves, entered 
the room, and crossing it at a sort of trot fell on his 
knees by the side of Madame Brandt's chair. 

"i4A/ Carissimay je vous vois enfin, Ach liebes Herzl 
Que fai ewuie de pleurerP^ 

Madame Brandt smiled, took the creature's head 
between her hands and kissed his forehead. She also 
caressed his shoulders. 

"My dear Anastasius, how good it is to see you. 
Where have you been this long time? Why didn't you 
write and let me know you were in England? But, see, 
Anastasius, I have visitors. Let me introduce you." 

She spoke in French, fluently, but with a frank British 
accent, which grated on a fastidious ear. The dwarf 
rose, made two solemn bows, and declared himself 
enchanted. Although his head was too large for his 
body, he was neither ill-made nor repulsive. He looked 
about thirty-five. A high forehead, dark, mournful 
eyes, and a black moustache and imperial gave him an 
odd resemblance to Napoleon the Third. 

" I arrived from New York this morning, with my cats. 
Oh, a mad success. I have one called Phoebus, because 
he drives a chariot drawn by six rats. Phoebus Apollo 
was the god of the sun. I must show him to you. Ma- 
donna. You would love him as I love you. And I 
also have an angora, my beautiful Santa Bianca. And 



7f • •- 



""> ' *f ' 



!^^t:LlC Librf /A K f 



TiLDt N FCt'*- r . - -re 



SIMON THE JESTER 



45 



you, gentlemen" — he turned to Dale and myself and 
addx^ed vis in his peculiar jargon of French, German, 
and Italian — "you must come and see my cats if I can 
get a London engagement. At present I must rest. 
The artist needs repose sometimes. I will sun myself 
in the smiles of our dear lady here, and my pupil and 
assistant, Quast, can look after my cats. Meanwhile the 
brain of the artist," he tapped his brow, "needs to lie 
fallow so that he can invent fresh and daring combina- 
tions. Do such things interest you, messieurs?" 

"Vastly," said I. 

He pulled out of his breast-pocket an enormous gilt- 
bound pocket-book, bearing a gilt monogram of such 
size that it looked like a cartouche on an architectural 
panel, and selected therefrom three cards which he 
gravely distributed among us. They bore the legend: 



PROFESSOR ANASTASIUS PAPADOPOULOS 

GOLD AND SILVER MEDALLIST 

THE CAT KINO 

LE ROI DES CHATS 

DER KATZEN KONIG 

London Agents : Messrs. Conto & Blag, 

172 Maiden Lane, W.C. 



"There," said he, "I am always to be found, should 
you ever require my services. I have a masterpiece in 
my head. I come on to the scene like Bacchus drawn 
by my two cats. How are the cats to draw my heavy 
weight? I'll have a noiseless clockwork arrangement 
that will really propel the car. You must come and 
see it." 

"Delighted, Tm sure," said Dale, who stood looking 
down on the Liliputian egotist with polite wonder. Lola 
Brandt glanced at him apologetically. 



46 SIMON THE JESTER 

''You mustn't mind him. Dale. He has only two 
ideas in his head, his cats and myself. He's devoted 
to me." 

''I don't think I shall be jealous/' said Dale in a low 
voice. 

"Foolish boy!" she whispered. 

During the love scene, which was conducted in Eng- 
lish, a language which Mr. Papadopoulos evidently 
did not imderstand, the dwarf scowled at Dale and 
twirled his moustache fiercely. In order to attract 
Madame Brandt's attention he fetched a packet of 
papers from his pocket and laid them with a flourish 
on the tea-table. 

" Here are the documents," said he. 

"What documents?" 

"A full inquiry into the circumstances attending the 
death of Madame Brandt's horse Sultan." 

"Have you found out anything, Anastasius?" she 
asked, in the indulgent tone in which one addresses an 
eager child. 

"Not exactly," said he. "But I have a conviction 
that by this means the murderer will be brought to 
justice. To this I have devoted my life — in your 
service." 

He put his hand on the spot of his tightly buttoned 
frock-coat that covered his heart, and bowed profoundly. 
It was obvious that he resented our presence and de- 
sired to wipe us out of our hostess's consideration. I 
glanced ironically at Dale's disgusted face, and smiled 
at the imperfect development of his sense of humour. 
Indeed, to the yoimg, humour is only a weapon of offence. 
It takes the philosopher to use it as defensive armour. 
Dale burned to outdo Mr. Papadopoulos. I, having 
no such ambition, laid my hand on his arm and went 
forward to take my leave. 

"Madame Brandt," said I, "old friends have doubt- 



SIMON THE JESTER 47 

less much to talk over. I thank you for the privilege 
you have afforded me of making your acquaintance." 

She rose and accompanied us to the landing outside 
the flat door. After saying good-bye to Dale, who 
went down with his bo)rish tread, she detained me for 
a second or two, holding my hand, and again her clasp 
enveloped it like some clinging sea-plant. She looked 
at me very wistfully. 

"The next time you come, Mr. de Gex, do come as 
a friend and not as an enemy." 

I was startled. I thought I had conducted the inter- 
view with peculiar suavity. 

"An enemy, dear lady?" 

"Yes. Can't I see it?" she said in her languorous, 
caressing voice. "And I should love to have you for 
a friend. You could be such a good one. I have so 
few." 

"I must argue this out with you another time," said 
I diplomatically. 

"That's a promise," said Lola Brandt. 

"What's a promise?" asked Dale, when I joined him 
in the hall. 

"That I will do myself the pleasure of calling on 
Madame agaiu." 

The porter whistled for a cab. A hansom drove up. 
As my destination was the Albany, and as I knew Dale 
was going home to Eccleston Square, I held out my hand. 

"Good-bye, Dale. I'll see you to-morrow." 

"But aren't you going to tell me what you think of 
her?" he cried in great (fismay. 

The pavement was muddy, the evening dark, and a 
gusty wind blew the drizzle into our faces. It is only 
the preposterously young who expect a man to rhapso- 
dise over somebody else's inamorata at such a moment. 
I turned up the fur collar of my coat. 

"She is good-looking," said I. 



48 



SIMON THE JESTER 



"Any idiot can see that!" he burst out impatiently. 
"I want to know what opinion you formed of her." 

I reflected. If I could have labelled her as the Scarlet 
Woman, the Martyred Saint, the Jolly Bohemian, or 
the Bold Adventuress, my task would have been easy. 
But I had an imcomfortable feeling that Lola Brandt 
was not to be classified in so simple a fashion. I took 
refuge in a negative. 

"She would hardly be a success," said I, "in serious 
political circles." 

With that I made my escape. 



CHAPTER V 

I WISH I had not called on Lola Brandt. She disturbs 
me to the p>oint of nightmare. In a fit of dream par- 
alyds last night I fancied myself stalked by a panther, 
which in the act of springing turned into Lola Brandt. 
What she would have done I know not, for I awoke; 
but I have a haimting sensation that she was about to 
devour me. Now, a woman who would devour a sleep- 
ing Member of Parliament is not a fit consort for a youth 
about to enter on a political career. 

The woman worries me. I find myself speculating 
on her character while I ought to be minding my affairs; 
and this I do on her own account, without any reference 
to my undertaking to rescue Dale from her clutches. 
Her obvious attributes are lazy good nature and swift 
intuition, which are as contrary as her tastes in tobacco 
and tea; but beyond the obvious lurks a mysterious 
animal power which repels and attracts. Were not 
her expressions rather melancholy than sensuous, rather 
benevolent than cruel, one might take her as a model 
for Queen Berenice or the estimable lady monarchs 
who )delded themselves adorably to a gentleman's kisses 
in the evening and saw to it that his head was nicely 
chopped off in the morning. I can quite understand 
Dale's infatuation. She may be as worthless as you 
please, but she is by no means the vulgar syren I was 
led to expect. I wish she were. My task would be 
easier. Why hasn't he fallen in love with one of the 
chorus whom his congeners take out to supper? He 
is an aggravating fellow. 

I have declined to discuss her merits or demerits with 
him. I could scarcely do that with dignity, said I; a 

4 49 



50 SIMON THE JESTER 

remark which seemed to unpress him with a sense of 
my honesty. I asked what were his intentions regard- 
ing her. I discovered that they were still indefinite. 
In his exalted moments he talked of marriage. 

"But what has become of her husband?" I inquired, 
drawing a bow at a venture. 

"I suppose he's dead," said Dale. 

"But suppose he isn't?" 

He informed me in his yoimg magnificence that Lola 
and himself would be above foolish moral conventions. 

"Indeed?" said I. 

" Don't pretend to be a Puritan," said he. 

"I don't pretend to like the idea, anyhow," I re- 
marked. 

He shrugged his shoulders. It was not the time for 
a lecture on morality. 

"How do you know that the lady retiuns your pas- 
sion?" I asked, watching him narrowly. 

He grew red. "Is that a fair question?" 

"Yes," said I. "You invited me to call on her and 
judge the affair for myself. I'm doing it. How far 
have things gone up to now?" 

He flashed round on me. Did I mean to insinuate 
that there was anything wrong? There wasn't. How 
could I dream of such a thing ? He was vastly indignant. 

"Well, my dear boy," said I, "you've just this minute 
been scoffing at foolish moral conventions. If you 
want to know my opinion," I continued, after a pause, 
"it is this — she doesn't care a scrap for you." 

Of course I was talking nonsense. 

I did not condescend to argue. Neither did I dwell 
upon the fact that her affection had not reached the 
point of informing him whether she had a husband, and 
if so, whether he was alive or dead. This gives me an 
idea. Suppose I can prove to him beyond a shadow of 
doubt that the lady, although flattered by the devotion 



SIMON THE JESTER 51 

of a handsome young fellow of birth and breeding, does 
not, as I remarked, care 9. scrap for him. Suppose I 
exhibit her to him in the arms, figuratively speaking, of 
her husband (providing one is lurking in some back-alley 
of the world), Mr. Anastasius Papadopoulos, a curate, or 
a champion wrestler. He would do desperate things 
for a month or two; but then he would wake up sane 
one fine morning and would seek out Maisie Ellerton in 
a salutary state of penitence. I wish I knew a curate 
who combined a passion for bears and a yearning for 
ladylike tea-parties. I would take him forthwith to 
Cadogan Gardens. Lola Brandt and himself would 
have tastes in common and would fall in love with each 
other on the spot. 

Of course there is the other time-honoured plan which 
I have not yet tried — to arm myself with diplomacy, 
call on Madame Brandt, and, working on her feelings, 
persuade her in the name of the boy's mother and sweet- 
heart to make a noble sacrifice in the good, old-fashioned 
way. But this seems such an unhumourous proceeding. 
If I am to achieve eumoiriety I may as well do it with 
some distinction. 

"Who doth Time gallop withal?" asks Orlando. 

"With a thief to the gallows," says Rosalind. It is 
true. The days have an uncanny way of racing by. I 
see my little allotted span of life shrinking visibly, like 
the peau de chagrin, I must bestir myself, or my last 
day will come before I have accomplished an)rthing. 

When I jotted down the above not very origiDal 
memorandum I had passed a perfectly uneumoirous 
week among my friends and social acquaintances. I 
had stood godfather to my sister Agatha's fifth child, 
taking upon myself obligations which I shall never be 
able to perform; I had dined amusingly at my sister 



52 SIMON THE JESTER 

Jane's; I had shot pheasants at Farfax Glenn's place in 
Hampshire; and I had paid a long-promised charming 
coimtry-house visit to old Lady Blackadder. 

When I came back to town, however, I consulted my 
calendar with some anxiety, and set out to clear my path. 

I have now practically withdrawn from political life. 
Letters have passed; complimentary and sjmpathetic 
gentlemen have interviewed me and tried to weaken 
my decision. The great Raggles has even called, and 
dangled the seals of oflSce before my eyes. I said they 
were very pretty. He thought he had tempted me. 

" Hang on as long as you can, for the sake of the Party." 

I spoke playfully of the Party (a man in my position, 
with one eye on Time and the other on Eternity, de- 
velops an acute sense of values) and Raggles held up 
horrified hands. To Raggles the Party is the Alpha 
and Omega of things human and divine. It is the gui- 
ding principle of the Cosmos. I could have spoken 
disrespectfully of the British Empire, of which he has a 
confused notion; I could have dismissed the Trinity, 
on which his ideas are vaguer, with an airy jest; in the 
expression of my views concerning the Creator, whom 
he believes to be imder the Party's protection, I could 
have out-Pained Tom Paine, out-Taxiled Leo Taxil, and 
he would not have winced. But to blaspheme against 
the Party was the sin for which there was no redemption. 

"I always thought you a serious politician!" he gasped. 

"Good God!" I cried. "In my public utterances 
have I been as dull as that ? Hi-health or no, it is time 
for me to quit the stage." 

He laughed politely, because he conjectured I was speak- 
ing humourously — ^he is astute in some things — ^and 
begged me to explain. 

I replied that I did not regard mustard poultices as 
panaceas, the vox populi as the Vox Dei, or the policy of 
the other side as the machinations of the Devil; that 



SIMON THE JESTER 53 

politics was all a game, of guess-work and muddle and 
comproniise at the best; that, at the worst, as during a 
General Election, it was as ignoble a pastime as the wit 
of man had devised. To take it seriously would be the 
course of a fanatic, a man devoid of the sense of pro- 
portion. Were such men, I asked, fitted to govern the 
country ? 

He did not stop to argue, but went away leaving me 
the conviction that he thanked his stars on the Govern- 
ment's providential escape from so maniacal a minister. 
I hope I did not treat him with any discourtesy; but, 
oh! it was good to speak the truth after all the dismal 
lies I have been forced to tell at the bidding of Raggles's 
Party. Now that I am no longer bound by the rules of 
the game, it is good to feel a free, honest man. 

Never again shall I stretch forth my arms and thun- 
der invectives against well-meaning people with whom 
in my heart I secretly sympathise. Never again shall 
I plead passionately for principles which a horrible in- 
stinct tells me are fundamentally futile. Never again 
shall I attempt to make mountains out of mole-hills or 
bricks without straw or sunbeams out of cuciunbers. 

I shall conduct no more inquiries into pauper lunacy, 
thank Heaven! And as for the public engagements 
which Dale Kynnersley made for me during my Thebaid 
existence on Murglebed-on-Sea, the deuce can take them 
all — I am free. 

I only await the stewardship of the Chiltem Hundreds, 
for which quaint post under the Crown I applied, to 
cease to be a Member of Parliament. And yet, in spite 
of all my fine and superior talk, I am glad I am giving 
. up in the recess. I should not like to be out of my seat 
were the House in session. 

I should hate to think of all the fascinating excite- 
ment over nothing going on in the lobbies without me, 
while I am still hale and hearty. When Parliament 



54 SIMON THE JESTER 

meets in February I shall either be comfortably dead or 
so uncomfortably alive that I shall not care. 

Ce que (fesi que de noust I wonder how far Simon 
de Gex and I are deceiving each other? 

There is no deception about my old friend Latimer, 
who called on me a day or two ago. He is on the Stock 
Exchange, and, muddle-headed creature that he is, has 
been "bearing" the wrong things. They have gone up 
sky-high. Settling-day is drawing near, and how to 
pay for the shares he is bound to deliver he has not the 
faintest notion. 

He stamped up and down the room, called down curses 
on the prying fools who came across the unexpected streak 
of copper in the failing mine, drew heart-rending pictures 
of his wife and family singing hymns in the street, and 
asked me for a drink of prussic acid. I rang the bell and 
ordered Rogers to give him a brandy and soda. 

"Now," said I, "talk sense. How much can you 
raise?" 

He went into figures and showed me that, although he 
stretched his credit to the utmost, there were still ten 
thousand pounds to be provided. 

"It's utter smash and ruin," he groaned. "And all 
my accursed folly. I thought I was going to make a 
fortune. But I'm done for now." Latimer is usually 
a pink, prosperous-looking man. Now he was white 
and flabby, a piteous spectacle. "You are executor 
under my will," he continued. "Heaven knows Fve 
nothing to leave. But you'll see things straight for me, 
if anything happens? You will look after Lucy and 
the kids, won't you?" 

I was on the point of imdertaking to do so, in the 
event of the continuance of his craving for prussic acid, 
when I reflected upon my own approaching bow and 
farewell to the world where Lucy and the kids would 



SIMON THE JESTER 55 

still be wandering. I am always being brought up 
against this final fireproof curtain. Suddenly a thought 
came which caused me to exult exceedingly. 

"Ten thousand pounds, my dear Latimer," said I, 
"would save you from being hammered on the Stock 
Exchange and from seeking a suicide's grave. It would 
also enable you to maintain Lucy and the kids in your 
luxurious house at Hampstead, and to take them as 
usual to Dieppe next summer. Am I not right?" 

He begged me not to make a jest of his miseries. It 
was like asking a starving beggar whether a dinner at 
the Carlton wouldn't set him up again. 

"Would ten thousand set you up?" I persisted. 

" Yes. But I might as well try to raise ten million." 

"Not so," I cried, slapping him on the shoulder. "I 
myself will lend you the money." 

He leaped to his feet and stared at me wildly in the 
face. He could not have been more electrified if he had 
seen me suddenly adorned with wings and shining 
raiment. I experienced a thrill of eumoiriety more ex- 
quisite than I had dreamed of imagining. 

"You?" 

"Why not?" 

"You don't understand. I can give you no security 
whatsoever." 

"I don't want security and I don't want interest," I 
exclaimed, feeling more magnanimous than I had a 
right to be, seeing that interest would be of no use to m^ 
on the other side of the Styx. " Pay me back when and 
how you like. Come roimd with me to my bankers and 
I'll settle the matter at once." 

He put out his hands; I thought he was about to fall 
at my feet; he laughed in a silly way and, groping after 
brandy and soda, poured half the contents of the brandy 
decanter on to the tray. I took him in a cab, a stupefied 
man, to the bank, and when he left me at the door with 



56 SIMON THE JESTER 

my draft in his pocket, there were tears in his eyes. He 
wrung my hand and murmured something incoherent 
about Lucy. 

"For Heaven's sake, don't tell her anything about 
it," I entreated. "I love Lucy dearly, as you know; 
but I don't want to have her weeping on my door-mat." 

I walked back to my rooms with a springing step. So 
happy was I that I should have liked to dance down 
Kccadilly. K the Faculty had not made their pro- 
nouncement, I could have no more turned poor Lati- 
mer's earth from hell to heaven than I could have 
changed St. Paul's Cathedral into a bumblebee. The 
mere possibility of lending him the money would not 
have occurred to me. 

A man of modest fortune does not go about plajdng 
Monte Cristo. He gives away a few guineas in charity; 
but he keeps the bulk of his fortune to himself. The 
death sentence, I vow, has compensations. It enables 
a man to play Monte Cristo or any other avatar of Pro- 
vidence with impunity, and to-day I have discovered it 
to be the most fascinating game in the world. 

When Latimer recovers his equilibrium and regards 
the transaction in the dry light of reason, he will diag- 
nose a sure s}miptom of megalomania, and will pity 
me in his heart for a poor devil. 

I have seen Eleanor Faversham, and she has released 
me from my engagement with such grace, dignity, and 
sweet womanliness that I wonder how I could have 
railed at her thousand virtues. 

"It's honourable of you to give me this opportimity 
of breaking it off, Simon," she said, "but I care enough 
for you to be willing to take my chance of illness." 

"You do care for me?" I asked. 

She raised astonished eyes. "If I didn't, do you 
suppose I should have engaged myself to you? If I 



SIMON THE JESTER 57 

married you I should swear to cherish you in sickness 
and in h^th. Why won't you let me?" 

I was in a diflSaJty. To say that I was in ill-health 
and about to resign my seat in Parliament and a slave 
to doctor's orders was one thing; it was another to tell 
her brutally that I had received my death warrant. She 
would have taken it much more to heart than I do. 

The announcement would have been a shock. It 
would have kept the poor girl awake of nights. She 
would have been for ever seeing the hand of Death at 
my throat. Every time we met she would have noted 
on my face, in my gait, infallible signs of my approach- 
ing end. I had not the right to inflict such intolerable 
pain on one so near and dear to me. 

Besides, I am vain enough to want to walk forth 
somewhat gallantly into eternity; and while I yet live 
I particularly desire that folks should not regard me as 
half-dead. I defy you to treat a man who is only going 
to live twenty weeks in the same pleasant fashion as 
you would a man who has the run of life before him. 

There is always an instinctive shrinking from decay. I 
should think that corpses must feel their position acutely. 

It was entirely for Eleanor's sake that I refrained 
from taking her into my confidence. To her question I 
replied that I had not the right to tie her for life to a 
helpless valetudinarian. "Besides," said I, "as my 
health grows worse my jokes will deteriorate, until I am 
reduced to grinning through a horse-collar at the doctor. 
And you couldn't stand that, could you?" 

She upbraided me gently for treating ever)rthing as a jest. 

"It isn't that you want to get rid of me, Simon?" she 
asked tearfully, but with an attempt at a smile. 

I took both hands and looked into her eyes — they are 
brave, truthful eyes — ^and through my heart shot a great 
pain. Till that moment 1 had not realised what I 
was giving up. The pleasant paths of the world — I 



i 



58 SIMON THE JESTER 

could leave them behind with a shrug. Political am- 
bition, power, I could justly estimate their value and 
could let them pass into other hands without regret. 
But here was the true, staunch woman, great of heart 
and wise, a helper and a comrade, and, if I chose to 
throw off the jester and become the lover in real earnest 
and sweep my hand across the hidden chords, all that a 
woman can become towards the man she loves. I 
realised this. 

I realised that if she did not love me passionately now 
it was only because I, in my foolishness, had willed it 
otherwise. For the first time I longed to have her as 
my own; for the first time I rebelled. I looked at her 
hungeringly imtil her cheeks grew red and her eyelids 
fluttered. I had a wild impulse to throw my arms 
around her, and kiss her as I had never kissed her be- 
fore and bid her forget all that I had said that day. Her 
faltering eyes told me that they reaSd my longing. I 
was about to yield when the Uttle devil of a pain inside 
made itself sharply felt and my madness went from 
me. I fetched a thing half-way between a sigh and a 
groan, and dropped her hands. 

"Need I answer your question?" I asked. 

She turned her head aside and whispered "No." 

Presently she said, " I am glad I came back from Sicily. 
I shouldn't have liked you to write this to me. I shouldn't 
have understood." 

"Do you now?" 

"I think so." She looked at me frankly. "Until 
just now I was never quite certain whether you really 
cared for me." 

"I've never cared for you so much as I do now, when 
I have to lose you." 

" And you must lose me ? " 

"A man in my condition would be a scoundrel if he 
married a woman." 



SIMON THE JESTER 59 

"Then it is very, very serious — ^your illness?" 

"Yes," said I, "very serious. I must give you your 
freedom whether you want it or not." 

She passed one hand over the other on her knee, look- 
ing at the engagement ring. Then she took it ofiF and 
presented it to me, lying in the palm of her right hand. 

" Do what you like with it," she said very softly. 

I took the ring and slipped it on one of the right-hand 
fingers. 

"It would comfort me to think that you are wearing 
it," said I. 

Then her mother came into the room and Eleanor 
went out. I am thankful to say that Mrs. Faversham, 
who is a woman only guided by sentiment when it leads 
to worldly advantage, applauded the step I had taken. 
As a sprightly Member of Parliament, with an assured 
political and soci^ position, I had been a most desirable 
son-in-law. As an obscure invalid, coughing and spit- 
ting from a bath-chair at Bournemouth (she took it for 
granted that I was in the last stage of consumption), I 
did not take the lady's fancy. 

"My dear Simon," replied my lost mother-in-law, 
"you have behaved irreproachably. Eleanor will feel 
it for some time no doubt; but she is young and will 
soon get over it. I'll send her to the Drascombe-Pr3aines 
in Paris. And as for yourself, yoiu* terrible misfortune 
will be as much as you can bear. You mustn't increase 
it by any worries on her behalf. In that way I'll do my 
utmost to help you." 

"You are kindness itself, Mrs. Faversham," said I. 

I bowed over the delighted lady's hand and went away, 
deeply moved by her charity and maternal devotion. 

But perhaps in her hardness Ues truth. I have never 
touched Eleanor's heart. No romance had preceded or 
accompanied our engagement. The deepest, truest 
incident in it has been our parting. 



CHAPTER VI 

Dale's occupadcHi, like OtheDo's, being gone, as far as 
I am coQcemed, Lady Kynnersky has despatched him 
to Beriin, on her own bu^ness, connected, I think, with 
the Intemati<»al Aid Society. He is to stay there for 
a fortnight. 

How he proposes to bear the separation from the 
object of his flame I have not inquired; but if forcible 
objurgaticms in the vulgar t(»igue have any inner signifi- 
cance, I gather that Laidy Kynnersley has not employed 
an enthusiastic agent. 

Being thus free to pursue my eumoirous schemes 
without his intervention, for ]rou cannot talk to a lady 
for her soul's good when her adorer is gaping at you, 
I have taken the opportimity to see something of Lola 
Brandt. 

I find I have seen a good deal of her; and it seems not 
improbable that I shaU see considerably more. Deuce 
take the woman ! 

On the first afternoon of Dale's absence I paid her my 
promised visit. It was a dull day, and the room, lit 
chiefly by the firelight, happily did not reveal its nerve- 
racking tastelessness. Lola Brandt, supple-limbed and 
lazy-voiced, talked to me from the cushioned depths of 
her chair. 

We lightly touched on Dale's trip to Berlin. She 
would miss him terribly. It was so kind of me to come 
and cheer her lonely hour. Politeness forbade my say- 
ing that I bad come to do nothing of the sort. To 
my vague expression of courtesy she responded by asking 
me with a laugh how I liked Mr. Anastasius Papado- 
poulos. 

60 



SIMON THE JESTER 6i 

I replied that I considered it urbane on his part to 
invite me to see his cats perform. 

"If you were to hurt one of his cats he'd murder you," 
she informed me. " He always carries a long, sharp knife 
concealed somewhere about him on purpose." 

"What a fierce little gentleman," I remarked. 

" He looks on me as one of his cats, too," she said with 
a low laugh, "and considers himself my protector. 
Once in Buda-Pesth he and I were driving about. I 
was doing some shopping. As I was getting into the 
cab a man insulted me, on account, I suppose, of my 
German name. Anastasius sprang at him like a wild 
beast, and I had to drag him off bodily and Uft him back 
into the cab. I'm pretty strong, you know. It must 
have been a funny sight." She turned to me quickly. 
"Do you think it wrong of me to laugh?" 

"Why shouldn't you laugh at the absurd?" 

" Because in devotion like that there seems to be some- 
thing solenm and frightening. If I told him to kill 
his cats, he would do it. If I ordered him to conunit 
Hari-Kari on the hearthrug, he would whip out his 
knife and obey me. WTien you have a human soul at 
your mercy like that, it's a kind of sacrilege to laugh at 
it. It makes you feel — oh, I can't express myself. 
Look, it doesn't make tears come into your eyes exactly, 
it makes them come into your heart." 

We continued the subject, divagating as we went, and 
had a nice little sentimental conversation. There are 
depths of hmnan feeling I should never have suspected 
in this lazy panther of a woman, and although she openly 
avows having no more education than a tinker's dog, 
she can talk with considerable force and vividness of 
expression. 

Indeed, when one comes to think of it, a tinker's dog 
has a fine education if he be naturally a shrewd animal 
and takes advantage of his opportunities; and a fine 



62 SIMON THE JESTER 

education, too, of its kind was that of the vagabond 
Lola, who on her way from Dublin to Yokohama had 
more profitably employed her time than Lady Kyn- 
nersley supposed. She had seen much of the civilised 
places of the earth in her wanderings from engagement 
^to engagement, and had been an acute observer of men 
and thir^. 

We exchanged travel pictures and reminiscences. I 
foimd myself floating with her through moonlit Venice, 
while she chanted with startling exactness the cry of 
the gondoliers. To my confusion be it spoken, I forgot 
all about Dale Kynnersley and my mission. The lazy 
voice and rich personality fascinated me. When I rose 
to go I found I had spent a couple of hours in her com- 
pany. She took me round the room and showed me 
some of her treasures. 

"This is very old. I think it is fifteenth century," 
she said, picking up an Italian ivory. 

It was. I expressed my admiration. Then mali- 
ciously I pointed to a horrible little Tyrolean chftlet and 
said: 

"That, too, is very pretty." 

She looked me squarely in the face. 

"It isn't. And you know it." 

She is a most disconcerting creature. I accepted the 
rebuke meekly. What else could I do ? 

"WTiy, then, do you have it here?" 

"It's a present from Anastasius," she said. "Every 
time he comes to see me he brings what he calls an 
^offrandeJ All these things" — she indicated, with a 
comprehensive sweep of the arm, the Union Jack cush- 
ion, the little men mounting ladders inside bottles, the hen 
sitting on her nest, and the other trimipery gimcracks 
— "all these things are presents from Anastasius. It 
would hurt him not to see them here when he calls." 

"You might have a separate cabinet," I suggested 



SIMON THE JESTER 63 

"A chamber of horrors?" she laughed. "No. It 
gives him more pleasure to see them as they are — and a 
poor little freak doesn't get much out of life." 

She sighed, and picking up "A Present from Mar- 
gate" kind of mug, fingered it very tenderly. 

I went away feeling angry. Was the woman bewitch- 
ing me? And I felt angrier still when I met Lady Kyn- 
nersley at dinner that evening. Luckily I had only 
a few words with her. Had I done anything yet with 
regard to Dale and the unmentionable woman? If I 
had told her that I had spent a most agreeable after- 
noon with the enchantress, she would not have enjoyed 
her evening. Like General Trochu of the Siege of Paris 
fame, I said in a mysterious manner, " I have my plan," 
and sent her into dinner comforted. 

But I had no plan. My next interview with Madame 
Brandt brought me no further. We have established 
telephonic communications. Through the medium of 
this diabolical engine of loquacity and indiscretion, I 
was prevailed on to accompany her to a rehearsal of 
Anastasius's cats. 

Rogers, with a face as imperturbable as if he was an- 
nouncing the visit of an archbishop, informed me at the 
appointed hour that Madame Brandt's brougham was 
at the door. I went down and found the brougham 
open, as the day was fine, and Lola Brandt, smiling 
under a gigantic hat with an amazing black feather, and 
looking as handsome as you please. 

We were blocked for a few minutes at the mouth of 
the courtyard, and I had the pleasure of all Piccadilly 
that passed staring at us in admiration. Lola Brandt 
liked it; but I didn't, especially when I recognised one 
of the starers as the eldest Drascombe-Prynne boy 
whose people in Paris are receiving Eleanor Faversham 
under their protection. A nice reputation I shall be 
acquiring. My companion was in gay mood. Now, as 



( 



64 SIMON THE JESTER 

it is no part of dealing unto oneself a happy life and 
portion to damp a fellow creature's spirits, I responded 
with commendable gaiety. 

I own that the drive to Professor Anastasius Papado- 
ponlos's cattery in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell, was 
distinctly enjoyable. I forgot all about the little pain 
inside and the Fury with the abhorred shears, and talked 
a vast amount of nonsense which the lady was pleased 
to regard as wit, for she laughed wholeheartedly, show- 
ing her strong white, even teeth. But why was I going? 

Was it because she had requested me through the tele- 
phone to give imimagined happiness to a poor little 
freak who would be as proud as Punch to exhibit his 
cats to an English Member of Parliament? Was it in 
order to further my designs — Machiavellian towards 
the lady, but eiunoirous towards Dale? Or was it simply 
for my own good pleasure ? 

Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos, resplendently rai- 
mented, with the shiniest of silk hats and a flower in the 
buttonhole of his frock-coat, received us at the door 
of a small house, the first-floor windows of which an- 
nounced the tenancy of a maker of gymnastic appli- 
ances; and having kissed Madame Brandt's hand with 
awful solemnity and bowed deeply to me, he preceded 
us down the passage, out into the yard, and into a ram- 
shackle studio at the end, where his cats had their being. 

There were fourteen of them, curled up in large cages 
standing against the walls. The place was lit by a sky- 
light and warmed by a stove. The floor, like a stage, 
was fitted up with miniature acrobatic paraphenu^ 
and properties. There were little five-barred gates, and 
trapezes, and tight-ropes, and spring-boards, and a 
trestle-table, all the metal work gleaming like sUver. 
A heavy, uncouth German lad, whom the professor in- 
troduced as his pupil and assistant, Quast, was in attend- 
ance. Mr. Papadopoulos polyglotically acknowledged 



SIMON THE JESTER 65 

the honour I had conferred upon him. He is very like 
the late Emperor of the French; but his forehead is 
bulgier. 

With a theatrical gesture and the remark that I should 
see, he opened some cages and released half a dozen 
cats — a Persian, a white Angora, and four commonplace 
tabbies, who all sprang on to the table with military pre- 
cision. Madame Brandt began to caress them. I, 
wishing to show interest in the troupe, prepared to do 
the same; but the dwarf sciuried up with a screech 
from the other end of the room. 

"iV« iouchez pas — ne touchez pas I" 

I refrained, somewhat wonderingly, from touching. 
Madame Brandt explained. 

"He thinks you would spoil the magnetic influence. 
It is a superstition of his." 

" But you are touching." 

"He believes I have his magnetism — ^whatever that 
may be," she said, with a smile. " Would you like to see 
an experiment ? Anastasius ! " 

"Carissima." 

"Is that the untamed Persian you were telling me 
of?" she asked, pointing to a cage from which a fero- 
cious gigantic animal more like a woolly tiger than a 
tom-cat looked out with expressionless yellow eyes. 
"Will you let Mr. de Gex try to make friends with it?" 

"Your will is law, meine K5nigin," replied Professor 
Papadopoulos, bowing low. "But Hephaestus is as 
fierce as the flames of hell." 

" See what he'll do," laughed Lola Brandt. 

I approached the cage with an ingratiating "Puss, 
puss!" and a hideous growl welcomed me. I ventured 
my hand towards the bars. The beast bristled in de- 
moniac wrath, spat with malignant venom, and shot 
out its claws. If I had touched it my hand would have 
been torn to shreds. I have never seen a more malevo- 



66 SIMON THE JESTER 

lent, fierce, spiteful, ill-conditioned brute in my life. 
My feelings being somewhat hurt, and my nerves a bit 
shaken, I retreated hastily. 

*'Now look," said Lola Brandt. 

With absolute fearlessness she went up to the cage, 
opened it, took the unresisting thing out by the scruff 
of its neck, held it up like a door-mat, and put it on her 
shoulder, where it forthwith began to purr like any 
harmless necessary cat and rub its head against her 
cheek. She put it on the floor; it arched its back and 
circling sideways rubbed itself against her skirts. 

She sat down, and taking the brute by its forepaws 
made it stand on its hind legs. She pulled it on to her 
lap and it curled round lazily. Then she hoisted it on 
to her shoulder again, and, rising, crossed the room and 
bowed to the level of the cage, when the beast leaped in 
purring thunderously in high good humour. Mr. Papa- 
dopoulos sang out in breathless delight: 

"If I am the King of Cats, you, Carissima, are the 
Queen. Nay, more, you are the Goddess!" 

Lola Brandt laughed. I did not. It was imcanny. 
It seemed as if some mysterious freemasonic affinity 
existed between her and the evil beast. During her 
drive hither she had entered my own atmosphere. She 
had been the handsome, unconventional woman of the 
world. Now she seemed as remote from me as the 
witches in "Macbeth." 

If I had seen her dashing Paris hat rise up into a point 
and her umbrella turn into a broomstick, and herself 
into one of the buxom carlines of "Tam O'Shanter," I 
should not have been surprised. The feats of the mild 
pussies which the dwarf began forthwith to exhibit 
provoked in me but a polite counterfeit of enthusiasm. 
Lola Brandt had discounted my interest. Even his 
performance with the ferocious Persian lacked the dia- 
bolical certainty of Lola's handling. He locked all the 



SIMON THE JESTER 67 

other cats up and enticed it out of the cage with a piece 
of fish. He guided it with a small whip, as it jumped 
over gates and through blazing hoops, and he stood 
tense and concentrated, like a lion-tamer. 

The act over, the cat turned and snarled and only 
jumped into its cage after a smart flick of the whip. 
The dwarf did not touch it once with his hands. I 
applauded, however, and complimented him. He laid 
his hand on his heart and bent forward in humility. 

"Ah, monsieur, I am but a neophyte where Madame 
is an expert. I know the superficial nature of cats. 
Now and then without vainglory I can say I know their 
hearts; but Madame penetrates to and holds commune 
with their souls. And a cat's soul, monsieur, is a won- 
derful thing. Once it was divine — ^in ancient Egypt. 
Doubtless monsieur has heard of Pasht? Holy men 
spent their lives in approaching the cat-soul. Madame 
was bom to the privilege. Pasht watches over her." 

"Pasht," said I politely in French, in reply to this 
dotted nonsense, "was a great divinity. And for your- 
self, who knows but what you may have been in a pre- 
vious incarnation the keeper of the Sacred Cats in some 
Egyptian temple." 

"I was," he said, with staggering earnestness. "At 
Memphis." 

"One of these days," I returned, with equal solem- 
nity, "I hope for the privilege of hearing some of your 
reminiscences. They would no doubt be interesting." 

On the way back Lola thanked me for pretending to 
take the little man seriously, and not laughing at him. 

"If I hadn't," said I, "he would have stuck his knife 
into me." 

She shook her head. "You did it naturally. I was 
watching you. It is because you are a generous-hearted 
gentleman." 

Said I: "If you talk like that Til get out and walk." 



68 SIMON THE JESTER 

And, indeed, what right had she to characterise the moral 
condition of my heart ? I asked her. She laughed her low, 
lazy laugh, but made no reply. Presently she said : 

"Why didn't you like my making fri^ids with the 
cat?" 

"How do you know I didn't like it?" I asked. 

"I felt it." 

"You mustn't feel things like that," I remarked. 
"It isn't good for you." 

She insisted on my telling her. I explained as weU 
as I could. She touched the sleeve of my coat with her 
gloved hand. 

"I'm glad, because it shows you take an interest in 
me. And I wanted to let you see that I could do some- 
thing besides loll about in a drawing-room and smoke 
cigarettes. It's all I can do. But it's something." She 
said it with the humility of the Jongleur de Notre 
Dame in Anatole France's story. 

In Eaton Square, where I had a luncheon engage- 
ment, she dropped me, and drove off smiling, evidently 
well pleased with herself. My hostess was standing 
by the window when I was shown into the drawing- 
room. I noted the faintest possible little malicious 
twinkle in her eye. 

During the afternoon I had a telephonic message from 
my doctor, who asked me why I had neglected him for a 
fortnight and urged me to go to Harley Street at once. 
To humour him I went the next morning. Hunnington 
is a bluff, hearty fellow who feeds himself into pink 
floridity so as to give confidence to his patients. In 
answer to his renewed inquiry as to my neglect, I re- 
marked that a man condemned to be hanged doesn't 
seek interviews with the judge in order to learn how the 
rope is getting on. I conveyed to him politely, although 
he is an old friend, that I desired to forget his well-fed 
existence. In his chatty way he requested me not to 



SIMON THE JESTER 69 

be an ass, and proceeded to put to me the usual silly 
questions. 

Remembering the result of my last visit, I made him 
happy by answering them gloomily; whereupon he 
seized his opportunity and ordered me out of England 
for the winter. I must go to a warm climate — Egypt, 
South Africa, Madeira — I could take my choice. I 
flatly refused to obey. I had my duties in London. He 
was so unsympathetic as to damn my duties. My duty 
was to live as long as possible, and my wintering in 
London would probably curtail my short life by two 
months. Then I turned on him and explained the chari- 
table disingenuousness of my replies to his questions. 
He refused to believe me, and we parted with mutual 
recriminations. I sent him next day, however, a brace 
of pheasants, a present from Farfax Glenn. After all, 
he is one of God's creatures. 

The next time I called on Lola Brandt I went with the 
fixed determination to make some progress in my mis- 
aon. I vowed that I would not be seduced by trum- 
pery conversation about Yokohama or allow my mind 
to be distracted by absurd adventures among cats. I 
would clothe myself in the armour of eumoiriety, and, 
with the sword of duty in my hand, would go forth to 
battle with the enchantress. All said and done, what 
was she but a bold-faced, strapping woman without an 
idea in her head save the enslavement of an impression- 
able boy several years her junior? It was preposterous 
that I, Simon de Gex, who had beguiled and fooled an 
electorate of thirty thousand hard-headed men into 
choosing me for their representative in Parliament, 
should not be a match for Lola Brandt. As for her 
complicated feminine personality, her intuitiveness, her 
magnetism, her fascination, all the qualities in fact 
which my poetical fancy had assigned to her, they had 
no existence in reality. She was the most commonplace 



70 SIMON THE JESTER 

person I had ever encountered^ and I had been but a 
sentim^ital limatic. 

In this truly admirable frame of mind I entered her 
drawing-room. She threw down the penny novel she 
was reading, and with a little cry of joy sprang forward 
to greet me. 

" I'm so glad you've come. I was getting the blind hump ! " 

Did I not say she was commonplace? I hate this 
synonym for boredom. It may be elegant in the mouth 
of a duchess and pathetic in that of an oyster-wench, 
but it falls vulgarly from intermediate lips. 

"What has given it to you?" I asked. 

"My poor little ouistiti is dead. It is this abomi- 
nable climate." 

I murmured condolences. I could not exhibit un- 
reasonable grief at the demise of a sick monkey which 
I had never seen. 

"I'm also out of books," she said, after having paid 
her tribute to the memory of the departed. "I have 
been forced to ask the servants to lend me something 
to read. Have you ever tried this sort of thing? You 
ought to. It tells you what goes on in high society." 

I was sure it didn't. Not a duchess in.^ts pages talked 
about having the blind hump. I said gravely: 

" I will ask you to lend it to me. Since Dale has been 
away I've had no one to make out my library list." 

"Do turn Adolphus out of that chair and sit down," 
she said, sinking into her accustomed seat. Adolphus 
was the Chow dog before mentioned, an accomplished 
animal who could mount guard with the poker and 
stand on his head, and had been pleased to favour me 
with his friendship. 

" I miss Dale greatly," said I. 

"I suppose you do. You are very fond of him?" 

"Very," said I. "By the by, how did you first come 
across Dale?" 



SIMON THE JESTER 71 

She threw me a swift glance and smiled. 

"Oh, in the most respectable way. I was dining at 
the Carlton with Sir Joshua Oldfield, the famous surgeon, 
you know. He performed a silly little operation on me 
last year, and since then we've been great friends. Dale 
and some sort of baby boy were dining there, too, and 
afterwards, in the lounge, Sir Joshua introduced them 
to me. Dale asked me if he could call. I said *Yes.' 
Perhaps I was wrong. Anyhow, vaUit Do you know 
Sir Joshua?" 

"I sat next to him once at a public dinner. He's a 
friend of the K)mnersleys. A genial old soul." 

"He's a dear!" said Lola. 

"Do you know many of Dale's friends?" I asked. 

"Hardly any," she replied. "It's rather lonesome." 
Then she broke into a laugh. 

"I was so terrified at meeting you the first time. Dale 
can talk of no one else. He makes a kind of god of 
you. I felt I was going to hate you like the devil. I 
expected quite a different person." 

The diplomatist listens to much and says little. 

"Indeed," I remarked. 

She nodded. "I thought you would be a big beefy 
man with a red face, you know. He gave me the idea 
somehow by calling you a 'splendid chap.' You see, I 
couldn't think of a 'splendid chap' with a white face 
and a waxed moustache and your way of talking." 

"I am sorr}%" said I, "not to come up to your idea 
of the heroic." 

"But you do!" she cried, with one of her supple 
twists of the body. "It was I that was stupid. And 
I don't hate you at all. You can see that I don't. I 
didn't even hate you when you came as an enemy." 

"Ah!" said I. "What made you think that? We 
agreed to argue it out, if you remember." 

She drew out of a case beside her one of her unspeak- 



72 SIMON THE JESTER 

able cigarettes. "Do you suppose," she said, lighting 
it, and pausing to inhade the first two or three puffs of 
smoke, "do you suppose that a woman who has lived 
among wild beasts hasn't got instinct?" 

I drew my chair nearer to the fire. She was begin- 
ning to be imcanny again. 

"I expected you were going to be horrified at the 
dreadful creature your friend had taken up with. Oh, 
yes, I know in the eyes of your class I'm a dreadful 
creature. I'm like a cat in many ways. I'm suspicious 
of strangers, especially strangers of your class, and I 
sniff and sniff imtil I feel it's all right. After the first 
few minutes I felt you were all right. You're true and 
honourable, like Dale, aren't you?" 

Like a panther making a sudden spring, she sat bolt 
upright in her chair as she* launched this challenge at 
me. Now, it is disconcerting to a man to have a woman 
leap at his throat and ask him whether he is true and 
honourable, especially when his attitude towards her 
approaches the Macluavellian. 

I could only murmur modestly that I hoped I could 
claim these qualifications. 

"And you don't think me a dreadful woman?" 

"So far from it, Madame Brandt," I replied, "that 
I think you a remarkable one." 

" I wonder if I am," she said, sinking back among her 
cushions. "I should like to be for Dale's sake. I 
suppose you know I care a great deal for Dale?" 

"I have taken the liberty of guessing it," said I. 
"And since you have done me the honour of taking me 
so far into your confidence," I added, playing what I 
considered to be my master-card, "may I venture 
to ask whether you have contemplated" — T paused — 
"marriage?" 

Her brow grew dark, as she looked involuntarily at 
her bare left hand. 



SIMON THE JESTER 73 

" I have got a husband ab-eady," she replied. 

As I expected. Ladies like Lola Brandt always have 
husbands unfit for publication; and as the latter seem 
to make it a point of honour never to die, widowed Lolas 
are as rare as blackberries in spring. 

"Forgive my rudeness," I said, "but you wear no wed- 
ding-ring." 

" I threw it into the sea." 

"Ah!" said L 

"Do you want to hear about him?" she asked sud- 
denly. "If we are to be friends, perhaps you had better 
know. Somehow I don't like talking to Dale about it^. 
Do you mind putting some coals on the fire?" 

I busied myself with the coal-scuttle, lit a cigarette, 
and settled down to hear the story. If it had not been 
told in the twilight hour by a woman with a caressing, 
enveloping voice like Lola Brandt's I should have 
yawned myself out of the house. 

It was a dismal, ordinary story. Her husband was a 
gentleman, a Captain Vauvenarde in the French Army. 
He had fallen in love with her when she had first taken 
Marseilles captive with the prodigiosities of her horse 
Sultan. His proposals of manifold unsanctified delights 
met with imqualified rejection by the respectable and 
not too passionately infatuated Lola. When he nerved 
himself to the supreme sacrifice of offering marriage she 
accepted. 

She had dreams of social advancement, yearned to be 
one of the white faces of the audience in the front rows. 
The dvil ceremony having been performed, he pleaded 
with her for a few weeks' secrecy on account of his 
family. The weeks grew into months, during which, for 
the sake of a livelihood, she fulfilled her professional 
engagements in many other towns. At last, when she 
returned to Marseilles, it became apparent that Captain 
Vauvenarde had no intention whatever of acknowledg- 



< 



74 SIMON THE JESTER 

ing her openly as his wife. Hence many tears. More- 
over, he had little beyond his pay and his gambling 
debts, instead of the comfortable little fortune that 
would have assured her social position. Now, officers 
in the French Army who marry ladies with performing 
horses are not usually guided by reason; and Captain 
Vauvenarde seems to have been the most imreasonable 
being in the world. It was beneath the dignity of Cap- 
tain Vauvenarde's wife to make a horse do tricks in 
public, and it was beneath Captain Vauvenarde's dig- 
nity to give her his name before the world. She must 
neither be Lola Brandt nor Madame Vauvenarde. She 
must give up her fairly lucrative profession and live in semi- 
detached obscurity up a little back street on an allowance 
of twopence-halfpenny a week and be happy and cheerful 
and devoted. Lola refused. Hence more tears. 

There were scenes of frantic jealousy, not on account 
of any hiunan being, but on account of the horse. If 
she loved him as much as she loved that abominable 
quadruped whose artificial airs and graces made him 
sick every time he looked at it, she would accede to his 
desire. Besides, he had 'the husband's right — le droit du 
mart — a powerful privilege in France. She pointed out 
that he could only exercise it by declaring her to be 
his wife. Relations were strained. They led separate 
lives. From Marseilles she went to Genoa, whither he 
followed her; Eventually he went away in a temj)er 
and never came back. She had not heard from him 
since, and where he w&s at the present moment she had 
not the faintest idea. 

"So you went cheerfully on with your profession?" 
I remarked. 

"I returned to Marseilles, and there I lost my horse 
Sultan. Then my father died and left me pretty well 
off, and I hadn't the heart to train another animal. So 
here I am. Ahl" 



SIMON THE JESTER 75 

With one of her lithe movements she rose to her feet, 
and, flinging out her arms in a wide gesture, began to 
walk about the room, stopping here and there to turn 
on the light and draw the flaring chintz curtains. I rose, 
too, so as to aid her. Suddenly as we met, by the win- 
dow, she laid both her hands on my shoulders and 
looked into my face earnestly and imploringly, and her 
lips quivered. I wondered apprehensively what she 
was going to do next. 

"For God's sake, be my friend and help mel" 

The cry, in her rich, low notes, seemed to come from 
the depths of the woman's nature. It caused some 
absurd and unnecessary chord within me to vibrate. 

For the first time I realised that her strong, handsome 
face could look nobly and pathetically beautiful. Her 
eyes swam in an adorable moisture and grew very humaH 
and appealing. In a second all my self-denying ordi- 
nances were forgotten. The witch had me in her power 
again. 

"My dear Madame Brandt," said I, "how can I 
doit?" 

"Don't take Dale from me. I've lived alone, alone, 
alone all these years, and I couldn't bear it." 

" Do you care for him so very much?" 

She withdrew her hands and moved slightly. "Who 
else in the wide world have I to care for?" 

This was ver}' pathetic, but I had the sense to remark 
that compromising the boy's future was not the best 
way of showing her devotion. 

"Oh, how could I do that?" she asked. "I can't 
marry him. And if I do what I've never done before 
for any man — become his mistress — who need know? 
I could stay in the background." 

"You seem to forget, dear lady," said I, "that Cap- 
tain Vauvenarde is probably alive." 

" But I tell you Fve lost sight of him altogether," 



76 SIMON THE JESTER 

"Are you quite so sure/' I asked, regaining my sanity 
by degrees, "that Captain Vauvenarde has lost sight of 
you?" 

She turned quickly. "What do you mean?" 

"You have given him no chance as yet of recovering 
his freedom." 

She passed her hand over her face, and sat down on 
the sofa. "Do you mean — divorce?" 

" It's an ugly word, dear Madame Brandt," said I, as 
gently as I could, "but you and I are strong people and 
needn't fear uttering it. Don't you think such a scan- 
dal would ruin Dale at the very beginning of his career ?" 

There was a short silence. I was glad to see she was 
feminine enough to twist and tear her handkerchief. 

"What am I to do?" she asked at last. "I can't 
live this awful lonely life much longer. Sometimes I 
get the creeps." 

I might have given her the sound advice to find healthy 
occupation in training crocodiles to sit up and beg; 
but an idea which advanced thinkers might classify as 
more suburban was beginning to take shape in my 
mind. 

"Has it occiured to you," I said, "that now you 
have assiuned the qualifications imjxised by Captain 
Vauvenarde for bearing his name?" 

"I don't understand." 

"You no longer perform in public. He would have 
no possible grievance against you." 

" Are you suggesting that I should go back to my hus- 
band?" she gasped. 

"I am," said I, feeling mighty diplomatic. 

She looked straight in front of her, with parted lips, 
fingering her handkerchief and evidently pondering the 
entirely new suggestion. I thought it best to let her 
ponder. As a general rule, people will do anything in 
the world rather than think; so, when one sees a human 



SIMON THE JESTER 77 

being wrapped in thought, one ought to regard wilful 
disturbance of the process as sacrilege. I lit a cigarette 
and wandered about the room. 

Eventually I came to a standstill before the Venus of 
Milo. But while I was admiring its calm, mysterious 
beauty, the development of a former idea took the shape 
of an inspiration which made my heart sing. Fate had 
put into my hands the chance of complete eumoiriety. 

If I could efiPect a reconciliation between Lola Brandt 
and her husband. Dale would be ciu-ed almost automati- 
cally of his infatuation, and I should be the Deputy 
Providence bringing happiness to six human beings — 
Lola Brandt, Captain Vauvenarde, Lady K}Tmersley, 
Maisie EUerton, Dale, and Mr. Anastasius Papado- 
poulos, who could not fail to be delighted at the happi- 
ness of his goddess. 

There also might burst joyously on the earth a brood 
of gleeful little Vauvenardes and merry little Kyn- 
nersleys, who might regard Simon de Gex as their mythi- 
cal progenitor. It might add to the gaiety of regiments 
and the edification of parliaments. Acts should be 
judged, thought I, not according to their trivial essence, 
but by the light of their far-reaching consequences. 

Lola Brandt broke the silence. She did not look at 
me. She said: 

" I can't help feeling that you're my friend." 

*'I am," I cried, in the exultation of my promotion 
to the rdle of Deputy Providence. " I am indeed. And 
a most devoted one." 

"Will you let me think over what )^u've said for 
a day or two — and then come for an answer?" 

"Wmmgly," said L 

"And you won't ?" 

"What?" 

"No. I know you won't." 

"Tell Dale?" I said, guessing. "No, of course not." 



78 



SIMON THE JESTER 



She rose and put out both her hands to me in a very 
noble gesture. I took them and kissed one of them. 

She looked at me with parted lips. 

" You are the best man I have ever met," she said. 

At the moment of her saying it I believed it; such 
conviction is induced by the utterances of this singular 
woman. But when I got outside the drawing-room 
door my natural modesty revolted. I slapped my thigh 
impatiently with what I thought were my gloves. They 
made so little sound that I found there was only one. 
I had left the other inside. I entered and found Lola 
Brandt in front of the fire holding my glove in her hand. 
She started in some confusion. 

"Is this yours?" she asked. 

Now whose could it have been but mine? The ridi- 
culous question worried me, off and on, all the evening. 



CHAPTER Vn 

The murder is out. A paragraph has appeared in the 
newspapers to the effect that the marriage arranged 
between Mr. Simon de Gex and Miss Eleanor Faversham 
will not take place. It has also become common know- 
ledge that I am resigning my seat in Parliament on 
accoimt of ill-health. That is the reason rightly as- 
signed by my acquaintances for the rupture of my en- 
gagement. I am being rapidly killed by the doleful 
kindness of my friends. They are so dismally s)rmpa- 
thetic. Everywhere I go there are long faces and solemn 
hand-shakes. In order to cheer myself I gave a little 
dinner-party at the club, and the function might have 
been a depressed wake with my corpse in a coffin on 
the table. My sisters, dear, kind souls, follow me 
with anxious eyes as if I were one of their children sick- 
ening for chicken-pox. They upbraid me for leaving 
them in ignorance, and in hushed voices inquire as to 
my symptoms. They both came this morning to the 
Albany to see what they coidd do for me. I don't see 
what they can do, save help Rogers put studs in my 
shirts. They expressed such affectionate concern that 
at last I cried out: 

"My dear giris, if you don't smile, I'll sit upon the 
hearth-rug and howl like a dog.'* 

Then they exchanged glances and broke into hectic 
gaiety, dear things, under the impression that they were 
brightening me up. I am being deluged with letters. 
I had no idea I was such a popular person. They come 
from high placed and lowly, from constituents whom 
my base and servile flattery have turned into friends, 

79 



8o SIMON THE JESTER 

from Members of Parliament, from warm-hearted 
dowagers and from little girls who have inveigled me 
out to lunch for the purpose of confiding to me their 
love affairs. I could set up as a general practitioner of 
medicine on the advice that is given me. I am recom- 
mended cod-liver oil, lung tonic, electric massage, ab- 
dominal belts, warm water, mud baths, SandoVs treat- 
ment, and every patent medicament save rat poiscn. I 
am urged to go to health resorts ranging geographically 
from the top of the Jungfrau to Central Africa. AU 
kinds of worthy persons have offered to nurse me. Old 
General Wynans writes me a four-page letter to assure 
me that I have only to go to his friend Dr. Eustace 
Adams, of Wimpole Street, to be cured like a shot. I 
happen to know that Eustace Adams is an eminent 
gynaecologist. 

And the worst of it all is that these effusions written 
in the milk of himian kindness have to be answered. 
Dale is not here. I have to sit down at my desk 
and toil like a galley slave. I am being worn to a 
shadow. 

Lola Brandt, too, has heard the news, Dale in Berlin, 
and the London newspapers being her informants. 
Tears stood in her eyes when I called to learn her deci- 
sion. Why had I not told her I was so ill? Why had 
I let her worry me with her silly troubles? Why had 
I not consulted her friend. Sir Joshua Oldfield? She 
filled up my chair with cushions (which, like most men, 
I find stuffy and comfortless), and if I had given her 
the slightest encouragement, would have stuck my feet 
in hot mustard and water. Why had I come out on such 
a dreadful day? It was indeed a detestable day of raw 
fog. She pulled the curtains close, and, insisting upon 
my remaining among my cushions, piled the grate with 
coal half-way up the chimney. Would I like some 
eucalyptus? 



SIMON THE JESTER 8i 

"My dear Madame Brandt," I cried, ''my bronchial 
tubes and lungs are as strong as a hippopotamus's." 

I wish every one would not conclude that I was going 
off in a rapid decline. 

Lda Brandt prowled about me in a wistful, mothering 
way, showing me a fresh side of her nature. She is as 
domesticated as Penelope. 

"You're fond of cooking, aren't you?" I asked sud- 
denly. 

She laughed. "I adore it. How do you know?" 

"I guessed," said I. 

"I'm what the French call a vraie bourgeaise" 

"I'm glad to hear it," said I. 

" Are you ? I thought your class hated the bourgeaisieJ* 

"The bourgeoisie^*^ I said, "is the nation's granary of 
the virtues. But for God's sake, don't tell any one that 
I said so!" 

"Why?" she asked. 

"If it found its way into print it would ruin my repu- 
tation for epigram." 

She drew a step or two towards me in her slow rhyth- 
mic way, and smiled. 

"When you say or do a beautiful thing you always 
try to bite off its tail." 

Then she tiuned and drew some needlework — plain 
sewing I believe they call it — ^from beneath the Union 
Jack cushion and sat down. 

"m make a confession," she said. "Until now I've 
stuffed away my work when I heard you coming. I 
didn't think it genteel. What do you think ? " 

I scanned the shapeless mass of linen or tulle or what- 
ever it was on her lap. 

"I don't know whether it's genteel," I remarked, 
"but at present it looks Kke nothing on God's earth." 

My masculine ignorance of such m)rsteries made her 
laugh. She is readily moved to mild mirth, which 

6 



82 SIMON THE JESTER 

makes her an easy companion. Besides, little jokes are 
made to be laughed at, and I like women who laugh at 
them. There was a brief silence. I smoked and made 
Adolphus stand up on his hind legs and balance sugar 
on lus nose. His mistress sewed. Presently she said, 
without looking up from her work: 

" I've made up my mind." 

I rose from my cushioned seat, into which Adolphus, 
evidently thinking me a fool, inunediately snuggled 
himself, and I stood facing her with my back to 
the fire. 

"Well?" said I. 

"I am ready to go back to my husband, if he can be 
found, and, of course, if he will have me." 

I commended her for a brave woman. She smiled 
rather sadly and shook her head. 

"Those are two gigantic *ifs.'" 

"Giants before now have been slain by the valiant," 
I replied. 

"How is Captain Vauvenarde to be foimd?" 

"An officer in the French Army is not like a lost 
sparrow in London. His whereabouts could be ob- 
tained from the French War Office. What is his regi- 
ment?" 

" The Chasseurs d' Afrique. Yes," she added thought- 
fully. "I see, it isn't difficult to trace him. I make 
one condition, however. You can't refuse me." 

"What is that?" 

"Until things are fixed up everything must go on 
just as at present between Dale and me. He is not to 
be told anything. If nothing comes of it then I'll have 
him all to myself. I won't give him up and be left 
alone. As long as I care for him, I swear to God, I 
won't!" she said, in her low, rich voice — and I saw by 
her face that she was a woman of her word. " Besides, 
he would come raving and imploring — and Fm not 



SIMON THE JESTER 83 

quite a woman of stone. It isn't all jam to go back to 
my husband. Goodness knows why I am thinking of 
it. It's for your sake. Do you know that?" 

I did not. I was puzzled. Why in the world should 
Lola Brandt, whom I have only met three or four times, 
revolutionise the whole of her life for my sake?" 

" I should have thought it was for Dale's," said I. 

" I suppose you would, being a man," she replied. 

I retorted, with a smile: "Woman is the eternal 
conundnmi to which the wise man always leaves her her- 
self to supply the answer. Doubtless one of these days 
you'll do it. Meanwhile, I'll wait in patience." 

She gave me one of her sidelong, flashing glances and 
sewed with more vigour than appeared necessary. I 
admired the beautiful curves of her neck and shoulders 
as she bent over her work. She seemed too strong to 
wield such an insignificant weapon as a needle. 

"That's neither here nor there," she said in reference 
to my last remark. "I say, I don't look forward to 
going back to my husband — ^though why I should say 
* going back' I don't know, as he left me — ^not I him. 
Anyhow, I'm ready to do it. If it can be managed, I'll 
cut m5rself adrift suddenly from Dale. It will be more 
merciful to him. A man can bear a sudden blow better 
than lingering pain. If it can't be managed, well. Dale 
will know nothing at all about it, and both he and I will 
be saved a mortal deal of worry and unhappiness." 

"Suppose," said I, "it can't be managed? Do you 
propose to keep Dale ignorant of the danger he is run- 
ning in keeping up a liaison with a married woman living 
apart from her husband?" 

She reflected. "If my husband says he'll see me 
damned first before he'll come back to me, then I'll tell 
Dale everything, and you can say what you like to him. 
He'll be able to judge for himself; but in the meanwhile 
you'll let me have what happiness I can." 



84 SIMON THE JESTER 

I accepted the compromise^ and, dispossessing Adol- 
phusy sat down again. I certainly had made progress. 
Feeling in a benevolent mood, I set forth the advan- 
tages she would reap by assuming her legal status; how 
at last she would shake the dust of Bohemia from off 
her feet, and instead of standing at the threshold like a 
disconsolate Peri, she would enter as a right the Para- 
dise of Philistia which she craved; how her life would 
be one continual tea-party, and how, as her husband 
had doubtless by this time obtained his promotion, she 
would be authorised to adopt high and mighty airs in 
her relations with the wives of all the captains and lieu- 
tenants in the regiment. She sighed and wondered 
whether she would like it, after all. 

"Here in England I can say 'damn' as often as I 
choose. I don't say it very often, but sometimes I feel 
I must say it or explode." 

"There are its equivalents in French," I suggested. 

She laughed outright. "Fancy my coming out with 
a sacri nam de Dieu in a French drawing-room!" 

"Fancy you shouting 'damn' in an English one." 

"That's true," she said. "I suppose drawing-rooms 
are the same all the world over. I do try to talk like a 
lady — at least, what I imagine they talk like, for Pve 
never met one." 

" You see one every time you look in the glass," said I. 

Her olive face flushed. "You mustn't say such things 
to me if you don't mean them. I like to think all you 
say to me is true." 

"Why in the world," I cried, "should you not be a 
lady? You have the instincts of one. How many of 
my fair friends in Mayfair and Belgravia would have 
made their drawing-rooms unspeakable just for the sake 
of not hurting the feelings of Anastasius Papadopoulos?" 

She put aside her work and, leaning over the arm of 
the chair, her chin in her hands, looked at me gratefully. 



SIMON THE JESTER 85 

" I'm so glad you've said that. Dale can't understand 
it. He wants me to clear the trash away." 

"Dale," said I, "is young and impetuous. I am a 
battered old philosopher with one foot in the grave." 

Quick moisture gathered in her eyes. "You hurt 
me," she said. "You'll soon get well and strong again. 
You must!" 

"Ce quefemme vetUy Dieu le veM/," I laughed. 

" Eh bien, je le veuXy^ she said with an odd expression 
in her eyes which burned golden. They fascinated me, 
held mine. For some seconds neither of us moved. 
Just consider the picture. There among the cushions 
of her chair she sprawled beneath the light of a shaded 
lamp on the further side, and in front of the leaping 
flames, a great, powerful, sinuous creature of sweeping 
curves, clad in a clinging brown dress, her head crowned 
with superb bronze hair, two warm arms bare to the 
elbow, at which the sleeve ended in coffee-coloured lace 
falling ove- the side of the chair, and her leopard eyes 
fixed on me. About her still hung the echo of her last 
words spoken in deep tones whose register belongs less 
to human habitations than to the jungle. And from 
her emanated like a captivating odour — ^but it was not 
an odour — z. strange magnetic influence. 

I have done my best to write her down in my mind a 
commonplace, vulgar, good-natured mountebank. But 
I can do so no longer. 

There is something deep down in the soul of Lola 
Brandt which sets her ap^art from the kindly race of 
womankind; whether it is the devil or a touch of pre- 
Adamite splendour or an ancestral catamount, I make 
no attempt to determine. At any rate, she is too grand 
a creature to fritter her life away on a statistic-hunting 
and pheasant-shooting yoimg Briton like Dale Kynnersley. 
He would never begin to imderstand her. I will save her 
from Dale for her own sake. 



86 SIMON THE JESTER 

All this, ladies and gentlemen, because her eyes fas- 
cinated me, and caused me to hold my breath, and made 
my heart beat. 

And will Captain Vauvenarde imderstand her? Of 
course he won't. But then he is her husband, and 
husbands are notoriously and cum privUegio dunder- 
headed. I make no pretensions to imderstand her; 
but as I am neither her lover nor her husband it does 
not matter. She says nothing diabolical or eerie or 
fantastic or feline or pre-Adamite or uncanny or spiri- 
tual; and yet she is, in a queer, indescribable way, aU 
these things. 

*^Je le veuXy^ she said, and we drank in each other's 
souls, or gaped at each other like a pair of idiots, just as 
you please. I had a horrible, yet pleasurable conscious- 
ness that she had gripped hold of my nerves of volitioru 
She was willing me to Uve. I was a puppet in her hands 
like the wild tom-cat. At that moment I declare I 
could have purred and rubbed my head against her 
knee. I would have done anything she bade me. If 
she had sent me to fetch the Cham of Tartary's cap or a 
hair of the Prester John's beard, I would have telephoned 
forthwith to Rogers to pack a suit-case and book a seat 
in the Orient express. 

What would have happened next Heaven alone knows 
— ^for we could not have gone on gazing at each other 
imtil I backed myself out at the door by way of leave- 
taking — had not Anticlimax arrived in the person of 
Mr. Anastasius Papadopoulos in his eternal frock- 
coat. But his gloves were black. 

As usual he fell on his knees and kissed his lady's hand. 
Then he rose and greeted me with solemn afifabUity. 

"Oest un privUige de rencatUrer den gn&digsten Herrn^^ 
said he. 

Confining myself to one language, I responded by 
informing him that it was an honour always to meet 



SIMON THE JESTER 87 

so renowned a professor, and inquired politdy after the 
health of Hephsestus. 

"Ah, Signore!" he cried. "Do not ask me. It is a 
tragedy from which I shall never recover." 

He sat down on a footstool by the side of Madame 
Brandt and burst into tears, which coursed down his 
cheeks and moustache and hung like drops of dew from 
the point of his imperial. 

"Is he dead?" asked Madame. 

"I wish he were, das Ungeheuerl No. It is only 
the iron self-restraint that I possess which prevented 
me from slaying him on the spot. But poor Santa 
Bianca! Das arme Liebchent La paverat My gentle 
and accomplished Angora! He has killed her. I can 
scarcely raise my head through grief." 

Lola put her great arm round the little man's neck 
and patted him like a child, while he sobbed as if his heart 
would break. 

When he recovered he gave us the details of the tragic 
end of Santa Bianca, and wound up by calling down the 
most ingeniously complicated and passionate curses on 
the head of the murderer. Lola Brandt strove to pacify 
him. 

"We all have our sorrows, Anastasius. Did I not 
lose my beautiful horse Sultan?" 

The professor sprang to his full height of four feet and 
dashed away his tears with a noble gesture of his black- 
gloved hand. 

Base slave that he was to think of his own petty 
bereavement in the face of her eternal affliction. He 
turned to me and bade me mark her serene nobility. 
It was a model and an example for him to follow. He, 
too, would be brave and present a smiling face to evil 
fortime. 

"Behold! I smile, carissima!" he cried dramati- 
cally. 



88 SIMON THE JESTER 

We befadd — and saw his features (anudged with tear- 
stains and the dye from the blad^ gto^ves which he ob- 
¥]0iisly wore out of respect for the deceased Santa Bianca) 
contorted into a grimace of hideous imbecility. 

''Monsieur/' said he, assuming his natural expr es si on 
which was one of pensm mrianrholy, '^let is change 
the conversation. You are a great statesman. WiU 
you kindly let me know your opancn on the fcveign 
policy of Germany?" 

Whereupcm he sat down again upon his stool and 
regarded me with earnest attention. 

'' Germany/' said I, with the solemnity of a Sir Orade 
in the smoldng-room of one of the pcditical dubs, "has 
dreams of an empire beyond her frontiers, and with a 
view to converting the dream into a reality, is turning 
out battleships nineteen to the dozen." 

The Professor nodded his head sagaciously, and 
looked up at Lola. 

"Very prcrfound," said he, "very pnrfbund. I shaU 
remember it. I am a Gre^ Monsieur, and the Greeks, 
as you know, are a nation of difdomatists." 

" Ever since the days of Xenophcxi," said L 

" You're both too dever for me," exdaimed our host- 
ess. "Where did you get your knowledge from, 
Anastasius?" 

The Professor, flattered, passed his hand over his 
bulgy forehead. 

" I was a great student in my youth," said he. " Once 
I could tell jrou all the kings of Rome and the date of 
the battle of Actium. But pressure of wdghtier con- 
cerns {des affaires mehr wichtig)^^ — ^his was indeed the 
most eccentric jargon I have ever heard — ^"has driven 
my erudition from me. Ma reine^^^ he ccmtinued, after 
a dight pause, "pardon me. I have not yet asked 
after your health. You are looking sad and troubled. 
What is the matter?" 



SIMON THE JESTER 89 

He sat bolt upright, fingering his imperial and regard- 
ing her with the keen solicitude of a family physician. 
To my amazement, Lola Brandt told him quite simply: 

" I am thinking of living with my husband again." 

"Has the traitor been annoying you?" he asked 
with a touch of fierceness. 

"Oh, no! It's my own idea. Fm tired of living 
alone. I don't even know where he is." 

" Do you want to know where he is?" 

"How can I commimicate with him imless I do?" 

Anastasius Papadopoulos rose, struck an attitude, 
and thumped his breast. 

"I will seek him for you at the ends of the earth, and 
will bring him to prostrate himself at your feet." 

"That's very kind of you, Anastasius," said Lola 
gently; "but what will become of your cats?" 

The dwarf raised his hand impressively. 

"The Almighty will have them in His keeping. I 
have also my pupil and assistant, Quast." 

Lola smiled indulgently from her cushions, showing 
her curious even teeth. 

"You mustn't do anything so mad, Anastasius, I 
forbid you." 

"Madame," said he in a most stately manner, "when 
I devote myself, it is to the death. I have the honour 
to salute you!" — ^he bowed over her hand and kissed it. 
"Monsieur." He bowed to me with the profimdity 
of a hidalgo, and trotted magnificently out of the room. 

It was sdl so sudden that it took my breath away. 

"Well I'm ^" I didn't know what I was, so I 

stopped. Lola Brandt broke into low laughter at my 
astonishment. 

"That's Anastasius's way," she explained. 

"But the little man surely isn't going to leave his 
cats and start on a wild-goose chase over Europe to 
find your husband?" 



90 SIMON THE JESTER 

" He thinks he is, but I shan't let him." 

"I hope you won't," said I. "And will you tell me 
why you made so hot-headed a person your confidant ?" 

I confess that I was wrathful. Here had I been using 
the wiles of a Balkan chancery to bring the lady to my 
way of thinking, and here was she, to my face, making a 
joke of it with this caricature of a Paladin. 

"My dearest friend," she replied earnestly, "don't be 
angry with me. I've given the poor little man some- 
thing to think of besides the death of his cat. It will 
do him good. And why shouldn't I tell him? He's a 
dear old friend, and in his way was so good to me when 
I was imhappy. He knows all about my married life. 
You may think he's half-witted; but he isn't. In or- 
dinary business dealings he's as shrewd as they make 
'em. The manager who beats Anastasius over a con- 
tract is yet to be bom." 

By some extraordinary process of the contortionist's 
art, she curled herself out of her chair on to the hearth- 
rug and knelt before me, her hands clasped on my knee. 

"You're not angry with me, are you?" she asked 
in her rich contralto. 

I took both her hands, rose, and assisted her to rise. 
I was not going to be mesmerised again. 

"Of course not," I laughed. Indeed my wrath had 
fallen from me. 

Her bosom heaved with a sigh. "I'm so glad," she 
said. Her breath fanned my cheek. It was aromatic, 
intoxicating. Her lips are ripe and full. 

"You had better find your husband as soon as possi- 
ble," said I. 

"Do you think so?" she asked. 

"Yes, I do. And it strikes me I had better go and 
find him m)rself." 

She starred. "You?" 

"Yes," I said. " The Chasseurs d'Afrique are pro- 



SIMON THE JESTER 



91 



bably in Africa, and the doctors have ordered me to 
winter in a hot climate, and I shall go on writing a million 
letters a day if I stay here, which will kill me off in no 
time with brain fag and writer's cramp. Your hus- 
band will be what the newspapers call an objective. 
Good-bye!" said I, "I'll bring him to you dead or alive." 
And without knowing it at the time, I made an exit 
as magnificent as that of Professor Anastasius Papado- 
poulos. 



CHAPTER Vra 

I DO not know whether I ought to laugh or rai. Judged 
by the ordinary canons that regulate the respectable 
life to which I have been accustomed, I am Kttle short 
of a limatic. The question is: Does the recognition of 
lunacy in oneself tend to amusement or anger? I com- 
promise with myself. I am angry at having been forced 
on an insane adventiure, but the prospect of its absurdity 
gives me considerable pleasure. 

Let me set it down once and for all: I resent Lola 
Brandt's existence. When I am out of her company 
I can contemplate her calmly from my vantage of social 
and intellectual superiority. I can pooh-pooh her 
fascinations. I can crack jokes on her shortcomings. 
I can see perfectly well that I am Simon de Gex, M.P. 
(I have not yet been appointed to the stewardship of 
the Chiltem Hundreds), of Eton and Trinity CoU^^e, 
Cambridge, a barrister of the Inner Temple (though a 
brief would cause me as much dismay as a command 
to conduct the orchestra at Covent Garden), formerly 
of the Foreign Office, a man of the world, a diner-out, 
a hardened jester at feminine wiles, a cynical student 
of philosophy, a man of birth, and, I believe, breeding, 
with a cultivated taste in wine and food and furniture, 
one also who, but for a little pain inside, would soon 
become a Member of His Majesty's Government, and 
eventually drop the ''Esquire" at the end of his name 
and stick "The Right Honourable" in front of it — in 
fact, a most superior, wise and important person; and 
I can also see perfectly well that Lola Brandt is an un- 
educated, lowly bred, vagabond female, with a taste, as 

9» 



SIMON THE JESTER 93 

I have remarked before, for wild beasts and tea-parties, 
with whom I have as much in common as I have with 
the feathered lady on a coster's donkey-cart or the Fat 
Woman at the Fair. I can see all this perfectly well in 
the cahn seclusion of my library. But when I am in 
her presence my superiority, like Bob Acres's valour, 
oozes out through my finger-tips; I become a besotted 
idiot; the sense and the sight and the soimd of her 
overpower me; I proclaim her rich and remarkable 
personality; and I bask in her lazy smiles like any silly 
undergraduate whose knowledge of women has hitherto 
been limited to his sisters and the common little girl 
at the tobacconist's. 

I say I resent it. I resent the low notes in her voice. 
I resent the cajolery of the supple twists of her body. I 
resent her putting her hands on my shoulders, and, as 
the twopenny-halfpenny poets say, fanning my cheek 
with her breath. If it had not been for that I should 
never have promised to go in search of her impossible 
husband. At any rate, it is easy to discover his where- 
abouts. A French bookseller has telegraphed to Paris 
for the Annuaire Officiel de PArmie Fran^aise, the 
French Army List. It locates every ofl5cer in the French 
army, and as the Chasseurs d'Afrique generally chase 
in Africa, it will tell me the station in Algeria or Tuni- 
sia which Captain Vauvenarde adorns. I can go straight 
to him as Madame Brandt's plenipotentiary, and if the 
unreasonable and fire-eating warrior does not nm me 
through the body for impertinence before he has time 
to appreciate the delicacy of my mission, I may be able 
to convince him that a well-to-do wife is worth the 
respectable consideration of a hard-up captain of Chas- 
seurs. I say I may be able to convince him; but I 
shrink from the impudence of the encounter. I am 
to accost a total stranger in a foreign army and tell 
him to return to his wife. This is the pretty little mis- 



94 SIMON THE JESTER 

sion I have undertaken. It sounded glorious and 
eumoirous and quixotic and deucedly funny, during the 
noble moment of inspiration, when Lola's golden eyes 
were upon me; but now — ^well, I shall have to persuade 
myself that it is fimny, if I am to carry it out. It is 
very much like wagering that one will tweak by the nose 
the first gentleman in gaiters and shovel-hat one meets 
in Piccadilly. This by some is considered the quintes- 
sence of comedy. I foresee a revision of my sense of 
humour. 

This afternoon I met Lady Kynnersley again — at the 
Ellertons'. I was talking to Maisie, who has grown no 
happier, when I saw her sailing across to me with ques- 
tions hoisted in her eyes. Being particularly desirous not 
to report progress periodically to Lady Kynnersley, I made 
a desperate move. I went forward and greeted her. 

"Lady Kynnersley," said I, "somebody was telling 
me that you are in urgent need of funds for something. 
With my usual wooden-headedness I have forgotten 
what it is — ^but I know it is a deserving organisation." , 

The philanthropist, as I hoped, ousted the mother. 
She exclaimed at once: 

"It must have been the Cabmen and Omnibus Dri- 
vers' Rheumatic Hospital." 

"That was it!" said I, hearing of the institution for 
the first time. 

"They are martyrs to rheumatic gout, and of course 
have no means of obtaining proper treatment; so we 
have secured a site at Harrogate and are building a 
comfortable place, half hospital, half hotel, where they 
can be put up for a shilling a day and have all the bene- 
fits of the waters just as if they were sta)dng at the Hotel 
Majestic. Do you want to become a subscriber?" 

"I am eager to," said I. 

"Then come over here and I'll tell you all about it." 

I sat with her in a comer of the room and listened to 



SIMON THE JESTER 95 

her fadry-tale. She wrung my heart to such a pitch of 
sympathy that I rose and grasped her by the hand. 

"It is indeed a noble project," I cried. "I love the 
London cabby as my brother, and I'll post you a cheque 
for a thousand poimds this evening. CJood-bye!" 

I left her in a state of joyous stupefaction and made 
my escape. If it had not fallen in with my general 
scheme of good works I should regard it as an expensive 
method of avoiding impleasant questions. 

Another philanthropist, by the way, of quite a dif- 
ferent type from Lady Kynnersley, who has lately 
benefited by my eleemosynary mania is Rex Campion. 
I have known him since our University days and have 
maintained a sincere though desultory friendship with 
him ever since. He is also a friend of Eleanor Faver- 
sham, whom he now and then inveigles into weird doings 
in the impossible slums of South Lambeth. He has tried 
on many occasions to lure me into his web, but hitherto 
I have resisted. Being the possessor of a large fortune, 
he has been able to gratify a devouring passion for 
philanthropy, and has squandered most of his money 
on an institution — ^, kind of dub, school, labour-bureau, 
dispensary, soup-kitchen, all rolled into one — ^in Lam- 
beth; and there he lives himself, perfectly happy among 
a hungry, grubby, scarecrow, tatterdemalion crowd. 
At a loss for a defining name, he has called it " Barbara's 
Building," after his mother. His conception of the 
cosmos is that sun, moon and stars revolve round Bar- 
bara's Building. How he learned that I was, so to 
speak, standing at street comers and flinging money 
into the laps of the poor and needy, I know not. But 
he came to see me a day or two ago, full of Barbara's 
Building, and departed in high feather with a cheque 
for a thousand pounds in his pocket. 

I may remark here on the peculiar difficulty there 
is in playing Monte Cristo with anything like picturesque 



96 SIMON THE JESTER 

grace. Any dull dog that owns a pen and a banking- 
account can write out cheques for charitable institutions. 
But to accomplish anything personal, imaginative, 
adventurous, an3rthing with a touch of distinction, is a 
less easy matter. You wake up in the morning with 
the altruistic yearnings of a St. Francois de Sales, and 
yet somehow you go to bed in the evening with the 
craving unsatisfied. You have really had so few op- 
portunities; and when an occasion does arise it is hedged 
around with such difficulties as to baffle all but the 
most persistent. Have you ever tried to give a beggar 
a five-poimd note ? I did this morning. 

She was a miserable, shivering, starving woman of 
fifty selling matches in Sackville Street. She held out 
a shrivelled hand to me, and eyes that once had been 
beautiful pleaded himgrily for alms. 

"Here," said I to m)rself, "is an opportunity of bring- 
ing unimagined gladness for a month or two kito this 
forlorn creature's life." 

I pressed a five-pound note into her hand and passed 
on. She ran after me, terror on her face. 

"I daren't take it, sir; they would say I hftd stolen 
it, and I should be locked up. No one would believe a 
gentleman had given it to me." 

She trembled, overwhelmed by the colossal fortune 
that might, and yet might not, be hers. I sympathised, 
but not having the change in gold, I could do no more 
than listen to an incoherent tale of misery, which did 
not aid the solution of the problem. It was manifestly 
impossible to take back the note; and yet if she retained 
it she would be subjected to scandalous indignities. 
What was to be done? I turned my eyes towards Pic- 
cadilly and beheld a policeman. A page wearing the 
name of a milliner's shop on his cap whisked past me. 
I stopped him and slipped a shilling into his hand. 

"Will you ask that policeman to come to me?" 



SIMON THE JESTER 97 

The boj tore down the street and told the policeman 
and followed him up to me, eager for amusement. 

"What has the woman been doing, sir?" asked the 
policeman. 

"Nothing," said I. "I have given her a five-pound 
note." 

"What for, sir?" he asked. 

"To further my pursuit of the eimioirous," said I, 
whereat he gaped stolidly; "but, be that as it may, I 
have given it her as a free gift, and she is afraid to pre- 
sent it anywhere lest she should be charged with theft. 
Will you kindly accompany her to a shop, where she 
can change it, and vouch for her honesty?" 

The policeman, who seemed to form the lowest opin- 
ion of my intellect, said he didn't know a shop on his beat 
where they could change it. The boy wlustled. The 
woman held the box of matches in one hand, and in 
the other the note, fluttering in the breeze. Idlers 
paused and looked on. The policeman grew authorita- 
tive and bade them pass along. They crowded all 
the more. My position was becoming embarrassing. 
At last the boy, remembering the badge of honour on 
his cap, imdertook to change the note at the hatter's 
at the comer of the street. So, having given the note 
to the boy and bidden the policeman follow him to see 
fair play, and encouraged the woman to follow the 
policeman, I resumed my walk down Sackville Street. 

But what a pother about a simple act of charity! In 
order to repeat it habitually I shall have to rely on the 
fortuitous attendance of a boy and a policeman, or have 
a policeman and a boy permanently attached to my 
person, which would be as agreeable as the continuous 
escort of a jackdaw and a yak. 

Poor Latimer is having a dreadful time. Apparently 
my ten thousand pounds have vanished like a snowflake 



98 SIMON THE JESTER 

on the river of his liabilities. How he is to repay me 
he does not know. He wishes he had not yielded to 
temptation and had allowed himself to be honestly 
hammered. Then he could have taken his family to 
sing in the streets with a quiet conscience. 

"My dear fellow," said I through the telephone this 
morning. "What are ten thousand poimds to me?" 

I heard him gasp at the other end* 

"But you're not a millionaire!" 

"I am!" I cried triumphanUy. And now I come to 
think of it, I spoke truly. If a man reckons his capital 
as half a year's income, doubles it, and works out the 
capital that such a yearly income represents, he is the 
possessor of a mint of money. 

"I am," I cried; "and I'U teU you what I'll do. TU 
settle five thousand on Lucy and the children, so that 
they needn't accompany you in your singing excur- 
sions. I shouldn't like them to catch cold, poor dears, 
and ruin their voices." 

In tones more than telephonically agonised he bade 
me not make a jest of his misery. I nearly threw the 
receiver at the blockhead. 

"I'm not jesting," I bawled; "I'm deadly serious. 
I knew Lucy before you did, and I kissed her and she 
kissed me years before she knew of your high existence; 
and if she had been a sensible woman she would have 
married me instead of you — ^what? The first time 
you've heard of it? Of course it is — and be decently 
thankful that you hear it now.** 

It is pleasant sometimes to tell the husbands cf girls 
you have loved exactly what you think of them; and I 
had loved Lucy Latimer. She came, an English rose, 
to console me for the loss of my French fleur-de-lis^ 
Clothilde. Or was it the other way about? One does 
get so mixed in these things. At any rate, she did not 
marry me, her first love, brt jilted me most abominably 



SIMON THE JESTER 99 

for Latimer. So I shall heap five thousand pounds on 
her head. 

I have been unfortimate in my love aflFairs. I wonder 
why? Which reminds me that I made the identical 
remark to Lucy Latimer a month or two ago. (She is a 
plump, kind, motherly, imromantic little person now.) 
She had the audacity to reply that I had never had any. 

"Few, Lucy Crooks, dare say such a thing!" I ex- 
claimed indignantly. 

She smiled. "Are there many more qualified than I 
to give the op nion?" 

I remember that I rose and looked her sternly in the 
face. 

"Lucy Crooks or Lucy Latimer," said I, "you are 
nothing more or less than a common hussy." 

Whereupon she laughed as if I had paid her a high 
compliment. 

I maintain that I have been imfortunate in my love 
affairs. First, there was an angel-faced widow, a con- 
temporary of my mother's, whom I wooed in Greek 
verses — and let me tell the young lover that it is much 
e^ier to write your own doggerel and convert it into 
Greek than to put "To Althea" into decent Anacre- 
ontics. I also took her to the Eton and Harrow match, 
and talked to her of women's hats and the things she 
loved, and neglected the cricket. But she would have 
none of me. In the flood tide of my passion she married 
a scorbutic archdeacon of the name of Jugg. Then 
there was a lady whose name for the life of me I can't 
remember. It was something ending in "-ine." We 
quarrelled because we held divergent views on Mr. 
Wilson Barrett. Then there was Clothilde, whose tragi- 
cal story I have already unfolded; Lucy Crooks, who 
threw me over for this dear, amiable, wooden-headed 
stockjobbing Latimer; X, Y and Z — but here, let me 
remark, I was the hunted — mammas spread nets for me 






loo SIMON THE JESTER 

which by the grace of heaven and the ungraciousness of 
the danosels I escaped; and, lastly, my incomparable 
Eleanor Faversham. Now, I thought, am I safe in 
harbour? If ever a match could have been labelled 
"Piu« heaven-made goods, warranted not to shrink" 
— that was one. But for this rupture there is an all- 
accounting reason. For the others there was none. I 
vow I went on falling in love until I grew absolutely sick 
and tired of the condition. You see, the vocabulary of 
the pastime is so confoimdedly limited. One has to say 
to B what one has said to A; to C exactly what one 
has said to A and B; and when it comes to repeating 
to F the formularies one has uttered to A, B, C, D and 
E one grows almost hysterical with the boredom of it. 
That was the delightful charm of Eleanor Faversham; 
she demanded no formularies or re-enactment of raptures. 

Well, one thing is certain. I shall never have another 
love aflfair. I am not sorry. 

The Annuaire Officiel de VArmie Fran^aise has arrived. 
It is a volume of nearly eighteen hundred pages, and 
being imcut both at top and bottom and at the side it is 
peciiUarly serviceable as a work of reference. I attacked 
it bravely, however, hacking my way into it, paper- 
knife in hand. But to my dismay, the more I hacked 
the less could I find of Captain Vauvenarde. I sought 
him in the Alphabetical Repertory of Metropolitan 
Troops, in the Alphabetical Repertory of Colonial Troops, 
in the list of ofl5cers kors cadrcy in the lists of seniority, 
in the list of his regiment, wherever he was likely or 
imlikely to be. There is no person in the French army 
by the name of Vauvenarde. 

I went straight to Lola Brandt with the hideous vol- 
ume and the unwelcome news. Together we searched 
the pages. 

"He must be here," she said, with feminine disregard 
of fact 



SIMON THE JESTER loi 

"Are you quite certain you have got the name right?" 
i asked. 

"Why, it is my own name!" 

"So it is," said I; "I was forgetting. But how do 
you know he was in the army at all?" 

He might have been an adventurer, a Captain of 
Kopenick of the day, who had poured a gallant but 
mendacious tale into her ears. 

"I hardly ever saw him out of imiform. He was 
quartered at Marseilles on special duty. I knew some 
of his brother officers." 

"Then," said I, "there are only two alternatives. 
Either he has left the army or he is ^" 

"Dead?" she whispered. 

"Let us hope," said I, "that he has left the army." 

"You must find out, Mr. de Gex," she said in a low 
voice. "I took it for granted that my husband was 
alive. It^s horrible to think that he may be dead. It 
alters ever3rthing, somehow. Until I know, I shall be 
in a state of awful suspense. You'll make inquiries at 
once, won't you?" 

"Did you love your husband, Madame Brandt?" 
Tasked. 

She looked at the fire for some time without repl)dng. 
She stood with one foot on the fender. 

"I thought I did when I married him," she said at 
last. " I thought I did when he left me." 

"And now?" 

She turned her golden eyes full on me. It is a dis- 
c^certing trick of hers at any time, because her eyes 
are at once wistful and compelling; but on this occasion 
it was startling. They held mine for some seconds, and 
I caught in them a glimpse of the hieroglyphic of the 
woman's soul. Then she turned her head slowly and 
looked again into the fire. 

"Now?" she echoed. "Many things have happened 



I02 SIMON THE JESTER 

between then and now. If he is alive and I go to him, 
I'll try to think again that I love him. It will be the 
only way. It will save me from pla}dng hell with my 
life." 

"I am glad you see your relations to Dale in that 
Ught," said L 

" I wasn't thinking of Dale," she said calmly. 

"Of what, then, if I may ask without impertinence?" 

She broke into a laugh which ended in a sigh, and then 
swimg her splendid frame away from the fireplace and 
walked backwards and forwards, her figure swa3dng and 
her arms flung about in unrestrained gestures. 

"You are quite right," she said, with an odd note of 
hardness in her voice. "You're quite right in what you 
said the other day — ^that it was high time I went back 
to my husband. I pray God he is not dead. I have a 
feeling that he isn't. He can't be. I count on you 
to find him and ask him to meet me. It would be better 
than writing. I don't know what to say when I have 
a pen in my hand. You must find him and speak to 
him and send me a wire and I'll come straight away to 
any part of the earth. Or would you like me to come 
with you and help you find him? But no; that's idi- 
otic. Forget that I have said it. I'm a fool. But 
he must be found. He must, he must!" 

She paused in her swinging about the room for which 
I was sorry, as her panther-in-a-cage movements were 
exceedingly beautiful, and she gaz^ at me with a 
tragedy air, wringing her hands. I was puzzled to find 
an adequate reason for this sudden emotional outburst. 
Hitherto she had accepted the prospect of a resumption 
of married life with a fatalistic calm. Now when the 
man is either dead or has vanished into space, she pins 
all her hopes of happiness on finding him. And why 
had her salvation from destruction nothing to do with 
Dale? There is obviously another range of emotions 



SIMON THE JESTER 103 

at work beneath it aH; but what their nature is baffles 
me. 'Although I contemplate with equanimity my little 
comer in the Garden of Proserpine, and with indiflFerence 
this conmion lodging-house of earth, and although I 
view mundane aflFairs with the same fine, calm, philo- 
sophic, satirical eye as if I were already a disembodied 
spirit, yet I do not like to be baffled. It makes me 
angry. But during this interview with Lola Brandt 
I had not time to be angry. I am angry now. In fact 
I am in a condition bordering on that of a mad dog. If 
Rogers came and disturbed me now, as I am writing, I 
would bite him. But I will set calmly down the story 
of this appalling afternoon. 

Lola stood before me wringing her hands. 

"What are you going to do?" 

" I can get an introduction to the Chef de bureau of 
the information department of the Ministire de la Guerre 
in Paris," I replied after a moment'? reflection. "He 
will be able to tell me whether Captain Vauvenarde is 
alive or dead." 

"He is alive. He must be." 

"Very well," said L "But I doubt whether Captain 
Vauvenarde keeps the office informed of his movements." 

" But you'll go in search of him, won't you ?" 

"The earth is rather a large place," I objected. "He 
may be in Dieppe, or he may be on top of Mount 
Popocatapetl." 

"I'm sure you'll find him," she said encouragingly. 

"You'll own," said I, "that there's something humour- 
ous in the idea of my wandering all over the surface of 
the planet in search of a lost captain of Chasseurs. It is 
true that we might employ a private detective." 

"Yes!" she cried eagerly. "Why not? Then you 
could stay here — and I could go on seeing you till the 
news came. Let us do that." 

The swiftness of her change of mood surprised me. 



I04 SIMON THE JESTER 

" What is the particular object of your going on see- 
ing me?" I asked, with a smile. 

She turned away and shrugged her shoulders and 
took up her pensive attitude by the fire. 

"I have no other friend," she said. 

"There's Dale." 

" He's not the same." 

"There's Sir Joshua Oldfield." 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

I lit a cigarette and sat down. There was a long 
silence. In some unaccountable way she had me under 
her spell again. I felt a perfectly insane dismay at the 
prospect of ending this queer intimacy, and I viewed 
her intrigue with Dale with profound distaste. Lola 
had become a habit. The chair I was sitting in was 
my chair. Adolphus was my dog. I hated the idea 
of Dale making him stand up and do sentry with the 
fire shovel, while Lola sprawled gracefully on the hearth- 
rug. On the other hand the thought of remaining in 
London and sharing with my young friend the privilege 
of her society was intolerable. 

I smoked, and, watching her bosom rise and fall as 
she leaned forward with one arm on the mantelpiece, 
argued it out with myself, and came to the paradoxical 
conclusion that I could pack her off without a pang to 
Kamtchatka and the embraces of her unknown husband, 
but could not hand her over to Dale without feelings 
of the deepest repugnance. A pretty position to find 
myself in. I threw away my cigarette impatiently. 

Presently she said, not stirring from her pose: 

"I shall miss you terribly if you go. A man like you 
doesn't come into the life of a conmion woman like me 
without" — she hesitated for a word — "without making 
some impression. I can't bear to lose you." 

"I shall be very sorry to give up our pleasant com- 
radeship," said I, "but even if I stay and send the pri- 



SIMON THE JESTER 105 

vate inquiry agent instead of going myself, I shan't 
be able to go on seeing you in this way." 

"Why not?" 

"It would be scarcely dignified." 

"On account of Dale?" 

"Precisely." 

There was another pause, during which I lit another 
cigarette. When I looked up I saw great tears rolling 
down her cheeks. A weeping woman alwa3rs makes me 
nervous. You never know what she is going to do next. 
Safety lies in checking the tears — ^in administering a 
tonic. Stilly her wish to retain me was very touching. 
I rose and stood before her by the mantelpiece. 

"You can't have your pudding and eat it too," said I. 

"What do you mean?" 

"You can't have Captain Vauvenarde for your hus- 
band, Dale for your cavaliere servenUy and myself for 
your guide, philosopher and friend all at the same time." 

"Which would you advise me to give up?" 

"That's obvious. Give up Dale." 

She uttered a sound midway between a sob and a laugh, 
and said, as it seemed, ironically: 

"Would you take his place?" 

Somewhat ironically, too, I replied, " A crock, my dear 
lady, with one foot in the grave has no business to put 
the other into the Pays du Tendre.^^ 

But all the same I had an absurd desire to take her 
at her word, not for the sake (Heaven and Eros forbid!) 
of constituting myself her amatU en litre, but so as to 
dispossess the poor boy who was clamouring wildly for 
her among his mother's snuffy colleagues in Berlin. 

"That's another reason why I shrink from your going 
in search of my husband," she said, dabbing her eyes. 
"Your m-health." 

"I shall have to go abroad out of this dreadful climate 
in any case. Doctor's orders. And I might just as well 



io6 SIMON THE JESTER 

travel about with an object in view as idle in Monte 
Carlo or Egypt." 

''But you might die!" she cried; and her tone touched 
my heart. 

"I've got to," I said, as gently as I could; and the 
moment the words passed my lips I regretted thenL 

She turned a temfied look on me and seized me by 
the arms. 

"Is it as bad as that? Why haven't you told me?" 

I lifted my arms to her shoulders and shook my head 
and smiled into her eyes. They seemed true, honest 
eyes, with a world of pain behind them. If I had not 
regarded myself as the gentleman in the Greek Tragedy 
walking straight to my certain doom, and therefore 
holding myself aloof from such vain things, I should 
have yielded to the temptation and kissed her there and 
then. And then goodness knows what would have 
happened. 

As it was it was bad enough. For, as we stood 
holding on to each other's shoulders in a ridiculous and 
compromising attitude, the door opened and Dale Kyn- 
nersley burst, unannounced, into the room. He paused 
on the threshold and gaped at us, open-mouthed. 



••>. 



CHAPTER IX 

We sprang apart, for all the world like a guilty pair 
surprised. Luckily the room was in its normal dim 
state of illumination, so that to one suddenly entering, 
the expression on our faces was not dearly visible; 
on the other hand, the subdued light gave a romantic 
setting to the abominable situation. 

Lola saved it, however. She rushed to Dale. 

" Do you know what Mr. de Gex was just telling me ? 
His illness — ^it is worse than any one thought. It's 
incurable. He can't live long; he must die soon. It's 
dreadful — dreadful! Did you know it?" 

Dale looked from her to me, and after a slight pause, 
came forward. 

"Is this true, Simon?" 

A plague on the woman for catching me in the trap! 
Before Dale came in I was on the point of putting an 
airy construction on my indiscreet speech. I had no 
desire to discuss my longevity with any one. I want to 
keep my miserable secret to myself. It was exaspera- 
tmg to have to entrust it even to Dale. And yet, if I 
repudiated her implied explanation of our apparent em- 
brace it would have put her hopelessly in the wrong. 
I had to support her. 

"It's what the doctors say," I replied, "but whether 
it's true or not is another matter." 

Again he looked queerly from me to Lola and from 
Lola back to me. His first impression of our attitude 
had been a shock from which he found it difficult to 

107 



io8 SIMON THE JESTER 

recover. I smiled, and, although perfectly innocent, 
felt a villain. 

''Madame Brandt is good enough to be soft-hearted 
and to take a tragic view of a most commonplace con- 
tingency." 

"But it isn't commonplace. By God, it's horrible?" 
cried the boy, the arrested love for me suddenly gushing 
into his heart. " I had no idea of it. In Heaven's name, 
Simon, why didn't you tell me? My dear old Simon." 

Tears rushed into his eyes and he gripped my hand 
until I winced. I put my other hand on his shoulder 
and laughed with a contorted visage. 

" My good Dale, the moribund are fragile." 

" Oh, Lord, man, how can you make a jest of it ? " 

" Would you have me drive about in a hearse, instead 
of a cab, by way of preparation?" 

"But what have the doctors told you?" asked Lola. 

"My two dear people!" I cried, "for goodness' sake 
don't fall over me in this way. I'm not going to die 
to-morrow imless my cook poisons me or I'm struck 
by lightning. I'm going to live for a deuce of a time yet. 
A couple of wee^ at least. And you'll very much 
oblige me by not whispering a word abroad about what 
you've heard this afternoon. It would cause me in- 
finite anno3rance. And meanwhile I suggest to you, 
Dale, as the lawyers say, that you have been impolite 
enough not to say how-do-you-do to your hostess." 

He turned to her rather sheepishly, and apologised. 
My news had bowled him over, he declared. He shook 
hands with her, laughed and walked Adolphus about 
on his hind legs. 

"But where have you dropped from?" she asked. 

"Berlin. I came straight through. Didn't you get 
my wire?" 

"No." 

" I sent one." 



SIMON THE JESTER 109 

" I ncTcr got it." 

He swung his arms about in a fine rage. 

"If ever I get hold of that son of Satan Til murder 
him. He was covered up to his beastly eyebrows in 
silver lace and swords and whistles and medals and 
things. He walked up and down the Friedrichstrasse 
railway station as if he owned the German navy and ran 
trains as a genteel hobby. I gave him ten marks to send 
the telegram. The miserable beast has sneaked the lot. 
FU get at the railway company through the Embassy 
and have the brute sacked and put in prison. Did 
you ever hear of such a skunk?" 

"He must have thought you a very simple and charm- 
ing young Englishman," said I. 

"You've done the same thing yourself!" he retorted 
indignantly. 

"Pardon me," said I. "If I do send a telegram in 
that loose way, I choose a humble and honest-looking 
porter and give him the exact fee for the telegram and 
a winning smile." 

"Rot!" said Dale, and turning to Lola — "He has 
demoralised the whole railway system of Europe with his 
tips. Fre seen him give a franc to the black greasy 
devil that bangs at the carriage wheels with a bit of iron. 
He would give anybody an)rthing." 

He had recovered his boyish pride in my ridiculous 
idiosyncrades, and was in process of illustrating again 
to Lola what a "splendid chap" I was. Poor lad! If 
he only knew what a treacherous, traitorous, Machiavelli 
of a hero he had got. For the moment I suflFered from 
a nasty crick in the conscience. 

"Wouldn't he, Adolphus, you celestial old black- 
guard?" he laughed. Then suddenly: **My hat! 
You two are fond of darkness! It gives me the creeps. 
Do you mind, Lola, if I turn on the light?" 

He marched in his young way across to the switches 



no SIMON THE JESTER 

and set the room in the blaze he loved. My crick of 
the conscience was followed by an impulse of resent- 
ment. He took it for granted that his will was law 
in the house. He swaggered around the room with a 
proprietary air. He threw in the casual "Lola" as if 
he owned her. Dale is the most delightful specimen of 
the modem youth of my acquaintance. But even 
Dale, with all his frank charm of manner, has the mod- 
em youth's offhand way with women. I often wonder 
how women abide it. But they do, more shame to them, 
and suffer more than they realise by their indulgence. 
When next 1 meet Maisie Ellerton I wUl read her a whole- 
some lecture, for her soul's good, on the proper treatment 
a self-respecting female should apply to the modem 
young man. 

Dale filled the room with his clear young laugh, and 
turned on every light in the place. Lola and I ex- 
changed glances — she had adopted her usual lazy pan- 
therine attitude in the armchair — ^and her glance was 
not that of a happy woman to whom a longed-for lover 
had unexpectedly come. Its real significance I could 
not divine, but it was more wistful than merely that 
of a fellow-conspirator. 

"By George!" cried Dale, pulling up a chair by Lola's 
side, and stretching out his long, well-trousered legs 
in front of the fiire. "It's good to come back to civili- 
sation and a Christian language and a fireside — ^and 
other things," he added, squeezing Lola's hand. "If 
only it had not been for tins horrible news about you, 
dear old man " 

"Oh, do forget it and give me a little peace!" I cried. 
" Why have you come back all of a sudden ?" 

"The Wymington people wired for me. It seems 
the committee are divided between me and Sir Gerald 
Macnaughton." 

"He has strong claims," said I. "He has been Mayor 



SIMON THE JESTER iii 

of the place and got knighted by mistake. He also 
gives large dinners and wears a beautiful diamond 
pin." 

"I believe he goes to bed in it. Oh, he's an awful 
ass! It was he who said at a public function 'The 
Mayor of Wymington must be like Caesar's wife — ^all 
thin^ to all menl' Oh, he's a colossal ass! And his 
conceit! My word!" 

"You neain't expatiate on it," said I. "I who speak 
have sufiFered much at the hands of Sir Gerald Mac- 
naughton." 

"If he did get into Parliament he'd expect an arm- 
chair to be put for him next the Speaker. Really, Lola, 
you never saw such a chap. If there was any one else 
up against me I wouldn't mind. Anyway, I'm running 
down to Wymington to-morrow to interview the com- 
mittee. And if they choose me, then it'll be a case of 
*Lord don't help me and don't help the b'ar, and you'll 
see the demdest best b'ar fight that ever was.' I'll 
make things hum in Wymington!" 

He went on eagerly to explain how he would make 
things hum. For the moment he had forgotten his 
enchantress who, understanding nothing of platforms 
and planks and electioneering machinery, smiled with 
pensive politeness at the fire. Here was the Dale that 
I knew and loved, boyish, impetuous, slangy, enthu- 
siastic. His dark eyes flashed, and he threw back his 
head and laughed, as he enunciated his brilliant ideas 
for capturing the constituency. 

"When I was working for you, I made love to half 
the women in the place. You never knew that, you 
dear old stick. Now I'm going in on my own account 
I'll make love to the whole crowd. You won't mind, 
Lola, will you? There's safety in numbers. And 
when I have made love to them one by one I'll get 'em 
all together and make love to the conglomerate mass! 



112 SIMON THE JESTER 

And then Fll rake up all the prettiest women in London 
and get 'em down there to humbug the men ** 

"Lady Kynnersley will doubtless be there,*' said I; 
"and I don't quite see her " 

He broke in with a laugh: "Oh! the mater? Fll 
fix up her job all right. She'll just love it, won't she? 
And then I know a lot of silly asses with motor-cars 
who'll come down. They can't talk for cob-nuts, and 
think Local Option has something to do with vivisection, 
and have a vague idea that champagne will be cheaper 
if we get Tariff Reform — but they'll make a devil of a 
noise at meetings and tote people round the country in 
their cars holdkig banners with 'Vote for Kynnersley' 
on them. That's a sound idea, isn't it?" 

I gravely commended the statesmanlike sagacity of 
his plan of campaign, and promised to write as soon as 
I got home to one or two members of the committee 
whom I suspected of pro-Macnaughton leanings. 

"I do hope they'll adopt you!" I cried fervently. 

" So do I," murmured Lola in her low notes. 

"If they don't," said Dale, "I'll ask Raggles to give 
me an unpaid billet somewhere. But," he added, with a 
sigh, "that will be an awful rotten game in comparison." 

"I'm afraid you won't make Raggles hum," said I. 

He laughed, rose and straddled across the hearth rug, 
his back to the fire. 

"He'd throw me out if I tried, wouldn't he? But if 
they do adopt me — ^I swear I'll make you proud of me, 
Simon. I'll stick my soul into it. It's the least I can 
do in this horrid cuckoo sort of proceeding, and I feel 
I shall be fighting for you as well as for myself. My 
dear old chap, you know what I mean, don't you?" 

I knew, and was touched. I wished him God-speed 
with all my heart. He was a clean, honest, generous 
gentleman, and I admired, loved and respected him as 
he stood there full of his youth and hope. I suddenly 



SIMON THE JESTER 113 

felt quite old and withered at the root of my being, like 
some decrepit king who hands his crown to the young 
prince. I rose to take my leave (for what advantage 
was there in staying?) and felt that I was abandoning 
to Dale other things beside my crown. 

Lola's strong, boneless hand closed round mine in a 
more enveloping grip than ever. She looked at me 
appealingly. 

"Shall I see you again before you go?" 

"Before you go?" cried Dale. "Where are you off 
to?" 

" Somewhere south, out of the fogs." 

"When?" 

"At once," said I. 

He turned to our hostess. "We can't let him go like 
that. I wonder if you could fix up a little dinner here, 
Lola, for the three of us. It would be ripping, so cosy, 
pu know." 

He glowed with the preposterous inspiration. Lola 
began politely: 

" Of course, if Mr. de Gex '' 

"It would be delightful," said I, "but I'm starting 
at once — to-morrow or the day after. We will have 
the dinner when I come back and you are a full-blown 
Member of Parliament." 

I made my escape and iBed to my own cheerful library. 
It is oak-panelled and furnished with old oak, and 
the mezzo-tints on the walls are mellow. Of the latter, 
I have a good collection, among them a Prince Rupert 
of which I am proud. I threw myself, a tired man, 
into an armchair by the fire, and rang the bell for a 
brandy and soda. Oh, the comfort of the rooms, the 
comfort of Rogers, the comfort of the familiar backs of 
the books in the shelves! I felt loth to leave it all and 
go vagabonding about the cold world on my lunatic 
adventure. For the first time in my life I cursed Mar- 
8 



114 SIMON THE JESTER 

cus Aurelius. I shook my fist at him as he stood on 
the shelf within easy reach of my hand. It was he 
who had put into my head this confounded notion of 
achieving eumoiriety. Am I dealing to mjrself, I asked, 
a happy lot and portion? Certainly not, I replied, and 
when Rogers brought me my brandy and soda I drank 
it ofiF desperately. After that I grew better, and drew 
up a merry little Commination Service. 

A plague on the little pain inside, the fons ei origo 
malorufn. 

A plague on Marcus Aurelius, for reasons above stated. 

A plague on Lady Kynnersley for weeping me into 
my rash undertaking. 

A plague on Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos for 
aiding and abetting Lady Kynnersley. 

A plague on Captain Vauvenarde for nmning away 
from his wife; for giving up the army; for not letting 
me know whether he is alive or dead; for being, Til 
warrant him, in the most uncomfortable and ungetatable 
spot on the globe. 

A plague on Dale for becoming infatuated with Lola 
Brandt. A plague on him for beguiling me to her 
acquaintance; for bursting into the room at that unfor- 
tunate moment; for his generous, unsuspecting love 
for me; for his youth and hope and charm; for askirg 
me to dine with Lola and himself in ripping cosiness. 

A plague on myself — ^just to show that I am broad- 
minded. 

And lastly, a plague, a special plague, a veritable 
murrain on Lola Brandt for complicating the splendid 
singleness of my purpose. I don't know what to think 
of myself. I have become a common conundrum — 
which provides the lowest form of intellectual amuse- 
ment. It is all her fault. Sua maxima culpa. 

Listen. I set out to free a young man of brilliant 
promise, at his mother's earnest entreaty, from an en- 



SIMON THE JESTER 115 

tanglement with an impossible lady, and to bring him 
to the feet of the most charming girl in the world who 
is dying of love for him. Could intentions be simpler 
or more honourable or more praiseworthy? 

I find myself, after two or three weeks, the lady's 
warm personal friend, to a certain extent her champion 
bound by a quixotic oath to restore her husband to 
her arms, and regarding my poor Dale with a feeling 
which is neither more nor less than green-eyed jealousy. 
I am praying heaven to grant his adoption by the Wy- 
mington committee, not because it will be the first step 
of the ladder of his career, but because the work and 
excitement of a Parliamentary election will prohibit 
overmuch lounging in my chair in Lola Brandt's draw- 
ing-room. 

Is there any drug I wonder which can restore a eu- 
moirous tone to the system ? 

Of course. Dale came round to my chambers in the 
evening and talked about Lola and himself and me 
until I sent him home to bed. He kept on repeating 
at intervals that I was glorious. I grew tired at last of 
the eulogy, and, adopting his vernacular, declared that 
I should be jolly glad to get out of this rubbishy world. 
He protested. There was never such a world. It was 
gorgeous. What was wrong with it, anyway? he asked. 
As I could not show him the Conunination Ser\ice, I 
picked imaginary flaws in the universe. I complained 
of its amateurishness of design. But Dale, who loves 
fact, was not to be drawn into a theological disputation. 

"Do you know, I had a deuce of a shock when 
I came into Lola's this afternoon?" he cried irrelevantly, 
with a loud laugh. " I thought — it was a danmable and 
idiotic thing to come into my head — but I couldn't 
help thinking you had cut me out! I wanted to tell 
you. You must forgive me for being such an ass. And 
I want to thank you for being so good to her while I 



ii6 SIMON THE JESTER 

was away. She has been telling me. You like her» 
don't you? I knew you would. No one can help it. 
Besides being other things, she is such a good sort, 
isn't she?" 

I admitted her many ejxdlendes, while he walked 
about the room. 

"By Jove!" he cried, coming to a halt. "Fve got 
a gramd idea. My little plan has succeeded so well 
with you that Fve a good mind to try it on my mother." 

"What on earth do you mean?" I asked. 

"Why shouldn't I take the bull by the horns and 
bring my mother. and Lola together?" 

I gasped. "My dear boy," said L "Do you want 
to kiU me outright? I can't stand such shocks to the 
imagination." 

"But it would be grand!" he exclaimed, delighted. 
"Why shouldn't mother take a fancy to Lola? You 
can imagine her roping her in for the conunittee!" 

I refused to imagine it for one instant, and I had the 
greatest difficulty in the world to persiiade him to re- 
nounce his maniacal project. I am going to permit 
no further complications. 

I have been busy for the past day or two. setting my 
house in order. I start to-morrow for Paris. All my 
little affairs are comfortably settled, and I can set out 
on my little trip to Avemus via Paris and the habitat 
of Captain Vauvenarde with a quiet conscience. I 
have allayed the anxiety of my sisters, whispered mys- 
terious encouragement to Maisie Ellerton, held out hopes 
of her son's emancipation to Lady Kjmnersley, played 
fairy godmother to various poor and deserving persons, 
and brought m}rself into an enviable condition of glow, 
ing philanthropy. 

To my great relief the Wymington committee have 
adopted Dale as their canctidate at the by-electvon. 



SIMON THE JESTER 117 

He can scarcely contain himself for joy. He is like a 
child who has been told that he shall be taken to the 
seaside. I believe he lies awake all night thinking how 
he will make things bum. 

The other side have chosen \^berforce, who unsuc- 
cessfully contested the Femey division of Wiltshire 
at the last general election. He is old and ugly. Dale 
is yoimg and beautiful. I think Dale will get in. 

I have said good-bye to Lola. The astonishing 
•woman burst into tears and kissed my hands and said 
something about my being the arbiter of her destiny — 
a Gallic phrase which she must have picked up from 
Captain Vauvenarde. Then she buried her face in the 
bristling neck of Adolphus, the Chow dog, and declared 
him to be her last remaining consolation. Even Anas- 
tasius Papadopoulos had ceased to visit her. I uttered 
words of comfort. 

" I have left you Dale, at any rate," said I. 

She smiled enigmatically through her tears. 

"I'm not ungrateful. I don't despise the cnmibs." 

Which remark, now that I come to think of it, was 
not flattering to my yoimg friend. 

But what is the use of thinking of it? My fire is 
burning low. It is time I ended this portion of my 
"Rule and Example of Eumoiriety," which, I fear, 
has not followed the philosophic line I originally intended. 

The die is cast. My things are packed. Rogers, 
who likes his British beef and comforts, is resigned to the 
prospect of Continental travel, and has gone to bed 
hours ago. There is no more soda water in the siphon. 
1 must go to bed. 

Paris to-morrow. 



CHAPTER X 

"Ay!" says Touchstone; "now am I in Arden; the 
more fool I; when I was at home I was in a better 
place." 

Now am I in Algiers; the more fool I; et cetera, et 
cetera. 

It is true that from my bedroom window in the 
Albany I cannot see the moon silvering the Mediterra- 
nean, or hear the soft swish of pepper-trees; it is true 
that oranges and eucalyptus do not flourish in the 
Albany Court-yard as they do in this hotel garden at 
Mustapha SupiSrieur; it is true that the blue African 
sky and simshine are more agreeable than Piccadilly 
fogs; but, after all, his own kennel is best for a d}ring 
dog, and his own familiar surroimdings best for his 
decUning hours. Again, Touchstone had not the faint- 
est idea what he was going to do in the Forest of Arden, 
and I was equally ignorant of what would befall when 
I landed at Algiers. He was bound on a fool adven- 
ture, and «^ was I. He preferred the easy way of home, 
and so do I. I have always loved Touchstone, but I 
have never thoroughly understood him till now. 

It rained persistently in Paiis. It rained as I drove 
from the Gare du Nord to my hotel. It rained all night. 
It rained all the day I spent there and it rained as I 
drove from my hotel to the Gare de Lyon. A cheery 
newspaper informed me that there were torrential rains 
at Marseilles. I mentioned this to Rogers, who tried to 
console me by reminding me that we only were staying 
at Marseilles for a few hours. 

"That has nothing to do with it," said L "At Mar- 

ii8 



SIMON THE JESTER 119 

sdlles I always eat bouillabaisse on the quay. Fancy 
eating bouillabaisse in the pouring rain!" 

As usual, Rogers could not execute the imaginative 
exercise I prescribed; so he strapped my hold-all with 
an extra jerk. 

Now, when homespun London is wet and muddy, no 
one minds very much. But when silken Paris lies 
bedraggled with rain and mud, she is the forlomest 
thing imder the sky. She is a hollow-eyed pale city, 
the rouge is washed from her cheeks, her hair hangs 
dank and dishevelled, in her aspect is desolation, and 
moaning is in her voice. I have a Sultanesque feeling 
with regard to Paris. So long as she is amusing and gay 
I love her. I adore her mirth, her chatter, her charming 
ways. But when she has the toothache and snivels, 
she bores me to death. I lose all interest in her. I want 
to clap my hands for my slaves, in order to bid them bring 
me in something less dismal in the way of fair cities. 

I drove to the P^ue Saint-Dominique and handed in 
my card and letter of introduction at the Ministire de 
la Guerre. I was received by the official in charge of 
the Bureau des Renseignemenis with bland politeness 
tempered with suspicion that I might be taking a mental 
photograph of the office furniture in order to betray 
its secret to a foreign government. After many comings 
and goings of orderlies and underlings, he told me very 
little in complicated and reluctant language. Captain 
Vauvenarde had resigned his commission in the Chasseurs 
d'Afrique two years ago. At the present moment the 
Bureau had no information to give as to his domicile. 

"Have you no suggestion, Monsieur, to offer?" I 
asked, "whereby I may obtain this essential information 
concerning Captain Vauvenarde?" 

"His old comrades in the regiment might know, 
Monsieur." 

"And the regiment?" 



J 



I20 SIMON THE JESTER 

He opened the Annuaire Officiel de PArmSe Frangaise, 
just as I might have done myself, and said: 

"There are six raiments. One is at Blidah, another 
at Tlemcen, another at Constantine, another at Tunis, 
another at Algiers, and another at Mascara." 

"To which raiment, then, did Captain Vauvenarde 
belong?" I inquired. 

He referred to one of the dossiers that the orderlies 
had brought him. 

"The 3rd, Monsieur." 

"I should get information, then, from Tlemcen?" 

"Evidently, Monsieur." 

I thanked him and withdrew, to his obvious relief. 
Seekers after knowledge are unpopular even in organi- 
sations so far removed from the Circimilocution Office 
as the French MinisUre de la Guerre. However, he 
had put me on the trail of my man. 

During my homeward drive through the rain I 
reflected. I might, of course, write to the Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the 3rd Regiment at Tlemcen, and wait 
for his reply. But even if he answered by return of 
post, I should have to remain in Paris for nearly a week. 

"That," said I, wiping from my face half a teacupful 
of liquid mud which had squirted in through the cab 
window — "that Fll never do. Til proceed at once to 
Algiers. If I can get no news of him there, FU go to 
Tlemcen myself. In all probability I shall learn that 
he is redding here in Paris, a stone's throw from the 
Madeleine." 

"So I started in the evening for Algiers. The next 
morning, before the sailing of the Marichal Bugeaudy 
one of the quaint chums styled a steamship by the 
vanity of the French Company which undertakes to 
convey respectable fdk across the Mediterranean, I ate 
my bouillabaisse below an awning on the sunny quay 
at Maiseilles. The torrential rains had ceased. I 



SIMON THE JESTER 121 

advised Rogers to take equivalent sustenance, as no 
lunch is provided on day of sailing by the Compagnie 
Gdn^rale Transatlantique. I caught sight of him in a 
dark comer of the restaurant — he was too British to eat 
in the open air on the terrace, or perhaps too modest 
to have his meal in my presence — struggling grimly with 
a beefsteak, and, as he is a teetotaller, with an unimagi- 
nable, horrific liquid which he poiured out from a vessel 
vaguely resembling a teapot. 

My meal over, and having nearly an hour to spare, I 
paid my biU, rose and turned the comer of the quay 
into the Cannebifere, thinking to have my coffee at one 
of the C3i€s in that thoroughfare of which the natives 
say that, if Paris had a Cannebifere, it would be a little 
Marseilles. I suppose for the Marseillais there is a 
magic in the sonorous name; for, after all, it is but a 
conunonplace street of shops running from the quays 
into the heart of the town. It is also deformed by 
tramcars. I strolled leisurely up, thinking of the many 
swans that were geese, and Paradises that were building- 
plots, and heroes that were dunmiies, and solidities 
that were shadows, in short, enjoying a gentle post- 
prandial mood, when my eyes suddenly fell on a scene 
which brought me down from such realities to the 
realm of the fantastic. There, a few yards in front of 
me, at the outer edge of the terrace of a caf^, clad in 
his eternal silk hat, frock coat, and yellow gloves, sat 
Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos in earnest conver- 
sation with a seedy stranger of repellent mien. The 
latter was clean-shaven and had a broken nose, and 
wore a little round, soft felt hat. The dwarf was facing 
me. As he caught sight of me a smile of welcome over- 
spread his Napoleonic features. He rose, awaited my 
approach, and,, bareheaded, made his usual sweeping 
bow, which he concluded by resting his silk hat on the 
pit of his stomach. I lifted my hat politely and would 



122 SIMON THE JESTER 

have passed on, but he stood in my path. I extended 
my hand. He took it after the manner of a provincial 
mayor receiving royalty. 

^* Couvrez-vot^y Monsieur, je vous en prie^^ said L 

He covered his head. "Monsieur," said he, "I 
beseech you to be seated, and do me the honoiu: of 
joining me in the coffee and excellent cognac of this 
establishment." 

"Willingly," said I, mindful of Lola's tale of the long 
knife which he carried concealed about his person. 

"Permit me to present my friend Monsieur Achille 
Saupiquet — Monsieur de Gex, a great English statesman 
and a friend of that gnadigslen Engel, Madame Lola 
Brandt." 

Monsieur Saupiquet and I saluted each other formally. 
I took a seat. Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos 
moved a bundle of papers tied up with pink ribbon 
from in front of me, and ordered coffee and cognac 

"Monsieur Saupiquet also knows Madame Brandt," 
he explained. 

"J5ie» ^r," said Monsieur Saupiquet. "She owes me 
fifteen sous." 

Papadopoulos turned on him sharply. "Will you be 
silent!" 

The other grumbled beneath his breath. 

"I hope Madame is well," said Papadopoulos. 

I said that she appeared so, when last I had the plea- 
sure of seeing her. The dwarf turned to his friend. 

"Monsieur has also done my cats the honour of 
attending a rehearsal. He has scin Hephaestus, and 
his tears have dropped in sympathy over the irreparable 
loss of my beautiful Santa Bianca." 

"I hope the talented survivors," said I, "are enjoy- 
ing their usual health." 

"My daily bulletin from my pupil and assistant, 
Quast, contains excellent reports. Prosit^ Signore. 



SIMON THE JESTER 123 

It was only when I found myself at the table with 
the dwarf and his broken-nosed friend that I collected 
my wits sufficiently to realise the probable reason of his 
presence in Marseilles. The grotesque little creature 
had actually kept his ridiculous word. He, too, had 
come south in search of the lost Captain Vauvenarde. 
We were companions in the Fool Adventure. There 
was something mediaeval in the combination; some- 
thing legendary. Put back the clock a few centuries and 
there we were, the Knight and the Dwarf, riding to- 
gether on our quest, while the Lady for whose sake 
we were making idiots of ourselves was twiddling her 
fair thumbs in her tower far beyond the seas. 

Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos broke upon this 
pleasing fancy by remarking again that Monsieur Sau- 
piquet was a friend of Madame Brandt. 

"He was with her at the time of her great bereave- 
ment." 

"Bereavement?" I asked forgetfully. 

"Her horse Sultan." 

He whispered the words with solemn reverence. I 
must confess to being tired of the horse Sultan and 
disinclined to treat his loss seriously. 

"Monsieur Saupiquet," said I, "doubtless offered 
her every consolation." 

"7fl wohll" cried the Professor. "He used to travel 
with her and look after Sultan's physical well-being. 
He was her ^" 

" Her Master of the Horse," I suggested. 

"Precisely. You have the power of using the right 
word. Monsieur de Gex« It is a great gift. My good 
friend Saupiquet is attached to a circus at present sta- 
tioned in Toulon. He came over, at my request, to 
see me— on affairs of the deepest importance" — he 
waved the bimdle of papers — "the very deepest im- 
portance. NicfU wahr^ Saupiquet ? " 



124 SIMON THE JESTER 

'^Bien sHr/* murmured Saupiquet, who evidently did 
not count loquacity among his vices. 

I wondered whether these important affairs con- 
cerned the whereabouts of Captain Vauvenarde; but 
the dwarfs air of mystery forbade my asking for his 
confidence. Besides, what should a groom in a circus 
know of retired Captains of Chasseurs? I said: 

"You're a very busy man, Monsieur le Professeur." 

He tapped his domelike forehead. "I am never 
idle. I carry on here gigantic combinations. I should 
have been a lawyer. I can spread nets, per Baccol 
that no one sees, and then — ^pst! I draw the rope and 
the victim is in the toils of Anastasius Papadopoulos. 
Hasl du nicfU das bemerkt, Saupiquet?" 

'*Bien si^r^" said Saupiquet agam. He seemed per- 
fectly conversant with the dwarfs polyglot jargon. 

"To the temperament of the artist," continued the 
modest Papadopoulos, "I join the intellect of the man 
of affairs and the heart of a yoimg poet. I am always 
young; yet as you see me here I am thirty-seven years 
of age." 

He jumped from his chair and struck an attitude of 
the Apollo Belvedere. 

"I should never have thought that you were of the 
same age as a battered person like myself," said I. 

"The secret of youth," he rejoined, sitting down 
again, "is enthusiasm, the worship of a woman, and 
intimate association with cats." 

Mondeur Saupiquet received this proposition with- 
out a gleam of interest manifesting itself in his dull blue 
eyes. His broken nose gave his face a singularly unin- 
telligent expression. He poured out another glass of 
cognac from the graduated carafe in front of him and 
sipped it slowly. Then he gazed at me dully, almost 
for the first time, and said: 

" Madame Brandt owes me fifteen sous." 



SIMON THE JESTER 125 

" And I say that she doesn't ! " cried the dwarf fiercely. 
"I send for him to discuss matters of the deepest gravity, 
and he comes talking about his fifteen sous. I can't 
get anything out of him, but his fifteen sous. And the 
carissima signora doesn't owe it to him. She can't 
owe it to him. Voyons, Saupiquet, if you don't re- 
nounce yoiiT miserable pretensions you will drive me 
mad, you will make me burst into tears, you will make 
me throw you out into the street, and hold you down 
until you are run over by a tramcar. You will — ^you 
will" — he shook his fist passionately as he sought for 
a climactic menace — "you will make me spit in your 
eye." 

He dashed his fist down on the marble table 90 that 
the glasses jingled. Saupiquet finished his cognac im- 
disturbed. 

"I say that Madame Brandt owes me fifteen sous, 
and imtil that is paid, I do no business." 

The little man grew white with exasperation, and his 
upper lip lifted like an angry cat's, showing his teeth. 
I shrank from meeting Saupiquet's eye. Hurriedly, I 
drew a providential handful of coppers from my pocket. 

"Stop, Herr Professor," said I, eager to prevent 
the shedding of tears, blood, or saliva, "I have just 
remembered. Madame did mention to me an unac- 
quitted debt in the South, and begged me to settle it for 
her. I am delighted to have the opportunity. Will 
you permit me to act as Madame's banker?" 

The dwarf at once grew suave and courteous. 

"The word of the carissima signora is the word of 
God," said he. 

I solemnly coimted out the fifteen halfpence on the 
table and pushed them over to Saupiquet, who swept 
them up and put them in his pocket. 

"Now we can talk," said he. 

"Make him give you a receipt!" cried Papadopou- 



i 



126 SIMON THE JESTER 

los excitedly. ''I know him! He is capable of any 
treachery where money is concerned. He is capaUe of 
re<lemanding the sum from Madame Brandt. He is an 
ingrate. And she, Monsieur le Membre du Parlement 
Anglais, has overwhelmed him with benefits. Do you 
know what she did? She gave him the carcass of her 
beloved Sultan to dispose of. And he sold it, Monsieur, 
and he got dnmk on the money." 

The mingled emotions of sorrow at the demise of 
Sultan, the royal generosity of Madame Brandt, and the 
turpitude of his friend Saupiquet, brought tears to the 
little man's eyes. Monsieur Saupiquet shrugged his 
shoulders imconcemedly. 

"A poor man has to get drunk when he can. It is 
only the rich who can get dnmk when they like." 

I looked at my watch and rose in a hurry. 

'Tm afraid I must take an unceremonious leave of 
you. Monsieur le Professeur." 

You must wait for the receipt," cried the dwarf. 
Will you do me the honour of holding it for me 
imtil we meet again? Hi!" The interpellation was 
addressed to a cabman a few yards away. **Your con- 
versation has made me neglect the flight of time. I 
shall only just catch my boat." 

"Your boat?" 

" I am going to Algiers." 

"Where will you be staying, Monsieur? I ask in no 
spirit of vulgar curiosity." 

I raised a protesting hand, and with a smile named 
my hotel. 

"I arrived here from Algiers yesterday afternoon," 
he said, "and I proceed there again to-morrow." 

"I regret," said I, "that you are not coming tOrday, 
so that I could have the pleasure of your company on 
the voyage." 

My polite formula seemed to delight Professor Anas- 






SIMON THE JESTER 117 

tasius Papadopoulos enormously. He made a series 
of the most complicated bows, to the joy of the waiters 
and the passers-by. I shook hands with him and with 
the stolid Monsieur Saupiquet, and waving my hat 
more like an excited Montenegrin than the most respect- 
able of British valetudinarians, I drove off to the Quai 
de la Joliette, where I found an anxious but dogged 
Rogers, in the midst of a vociferating crowd, literally 
holding the bridge that gave access to the Marichal 
Bugeaud. 

" Thank Heaven, you've come, sir 1 You almost missed 
it. I couldn't have held out another minute." 

I, too, was thankful. If I had missed the boat I 
should have had to wait till the next day and crossed in 
the embarrassing and unrestful company of Professor 
Anastasius Papadopoulos. It is not that I dislike the 
little man, or have the Briton's nervous shrinking from 
being seen in eccentric society; but I wish to eliminate 
medievalism as far as possible from my quest. It is 
lunatic enough already, Heaven knows. In conjunc- 
tion with this crazy-headed little trainer of cats it would 
become too preposterous even for my light sardonic 
humour. I resolved to dismiss him from my mind 
altogether. 

Yet, in spite of my determination, and in spite of one 
of Monsieur Lendtre's fascinating monographs on the 
French Revolution, on which I had counted to beguile 
the tedium of the journey, I could not get Anastasius 
Papadopoulos out of my head. He stayed with me the 
whole of a storm-tossed night, and all the next morning. 
He has haunted my brain ever since. I see him tossing 
his arms about in fury, while the broken-nosed Sau- 
piquet makes his monotonous claim for the payment 
of sevenpence halfpenny; I hear him speak in broken 
whispers of the disastrous quadruped on whose skin and 
hoofs Saupiquet got dnmk« I see him strutting about 



iz8 SIMON THE JESTER 



and boasdng of his intellect. I see Um taking leave 
of Lola Brandt, and trotting magnificently out of the 
room bent oa finding Captain Vauvenarde. He haunts 
my slmnbers. I hope to goodness he will not take to 
haunting this delectable hoteL 

I wcmder, after all, whether there is any method in 
his madness — for mad he is, as mad as can be. Why 
does he come backwards and forwards between Algiers 
and Marseilles? What has Saupiquet to do with his 
quest? What revelation was he about to make on the 
payment of his fifteen sous? It is all so grotesque, so 
out of relation with ordinary life. I fed inclined to go 
up to the retired Colonels and elderly maiden ladies, 
who seem to form the majority of my fellow-guests, 
and pinch them and ask them whether they are real, or, 
like Papadopoulos and Saupiquet, the g^itler creatures 
cl a ni^tmare. ^ 

Well, I have written to the Lieutenant-Cokmel (rf the 
3rd Regiment of Chasseurs at Tlemcen, winch is away 
down by the Morocco frontier. I have also written to 
Lola Brandt. I seem to miss her as much as any of the 
friends I have left behind me in England. I caimot help 
the absurd fancy that her rich vitality helps me along. 
I have not been feeling quite so robust as I did when I 
saw her daily. And twinges are coming more frequently. 
Aiet I don't think that rolling about in the Medi- 
terranean on board the Marichal Bugeaud is good for 
little pains inside. 



CHAPTER XI 

When I bq;an this autobiographical sketch of the last 
few weeks of my existence, I had conceived, as I have 
already said, the notion of making it chiefly a guide to 
conduct for my young disciple, Dale Kynnersley. Not 
only was it to explain to him clearly the motives which 
led to my taking any particular line of action with re- 
gard to his affairs, and so enable me to escape whatever 
blame he might, through misimderstanding, be disposed 
to cast <m me, but also to elevate his mind, stimulate 
his ambitions, and improve his morals. It was to be a 
Manual of Eumcnriety. It was to be sweetened with 
philosophic reflections and adorned with allusions to the 
lives of the great masters of their destiny who have 
passed away. It was to have been a pretty little work 
after the manner of Montaigne, with the exception that 
it ran of its own accord into narrative form. But I am 
afraid Lola Brandt has interposed herself between me 
and my design. She has brought me down from the 
serene philosophic plane where I could think and observe 
human happenings and analyse them and present them 
in their true aspect to my young friend. She has set me 
down in the thick of events — ^and not events such as the 
smiling philosopher is in the habit of dealing with, but 
lunatic, fantastic occurrences with which no system of 
philosophy invented by man is capable of grappling. I 
can just keep my head, that is all, and note down what 
happens more or less day by day, so that when the doings 
of dwarfe and captains, and horse-tamers and youthful 
Members oi Parliament concern me no more. Dale 
Kynnersley can have a bald, but veracious statement of 

9 129 



( 



I30 SIMON THE JESTER 

fact. And as I have before mentioned, he lores facts, 
just as a bear loves honey. 

I passed a quiet day or two in my hotel garden, among 
the sweet-peas, and the roses, and the geraniums. There 
were little shady siunmer-houses where one could sit 
and dream, and watch the blue sky and the palms and 
the feathery pepper trees drooping with their coral 
berries, and the golden orange-trees and the wisteria and 
the great gorgeous splash of purple bourgainvillea above 
the Moorish arches of the hotel. There were mild little 
walks in the eucalyptus woods behind, where one went 
through acanthus and wild absinthe, and here and 
there as the path wound, the great blue bay came into 
view, and far away the snow-capped peaks of the Atlas. 
There were warmth and sunshine, and the imexciting 
prattle of the retired Colonels and maiden ladies. There 
was an hotel library filled with archaic fiction. I 
took out Ainsworth's "Tower of London," and passed 
a happy morning in the sun renewing the thrills of my 
childhood. I began to forget the outer world in my en- 
chanted garden, Uke a knight in the Forest of Broceliande. 

Then came the letter from Tlemcen. The Lieutenant- 
Colonel commanding the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs 
d'Afrique had received my honoured communication 
but regretted to say that he, together with all the officers 
of the raiment, had severed their connection with Cap- 
tain Vauvenaide, and that they were ignorant of his 
present address. 

This was absurd. A man does not resign from his 
regiment and within a year or two disappear like a ghost 
from the ken of every one of his brother officers. I read 
the letter again. Did the severance of connection mean 
the casting out of a black sheep from their midst? I 
came to the conclusion that' it did. They had washed 
their hands of Captain Vauvenarde, and desired to hear 
nothing of him in the future. 



SIMON THE JESTER 131 

So I awoke from my lethargy, and springing up sent 
not for my shield and spear, but for an ''Indicateur des 
Chemins de Fer." I would go to Tlemcen and get to the 
bottom of it. I searched lie time-table and found two 
trains, one starting from Algiers at nine-forty at night 
and getting into Tlemcen at noon next day, and one 
leaving at six-fifty in the morning and arriving at half- 
past ten at night. I groaned aloud. The dealing unto 
oneself a happy life and portion did not include abom- 
inable train journeys like these. I was trying to decide 
whether I should travel all night or all day when the 
Arab chasseur of the hotel brought me a telegram. I 
opened it. It ran: 

''Starting for Algiers. Meet me. — ^Lola." 

It was despatched that morning from Victoria Station. 
I ^ized at it stupidly. Why in the world was Lola 
Brandt coming to join me in Algiers ? If she had wanted 
to do ber husband himting on her own account, why 
had she put me to the inconvenience of my journey? 
Her action could not have been determined by my letter 
about Anastasius Papadopoulos, as a short calculation 
proved that it could not have reached her. I wandered 
roimd and round the garden paths vainly seeking for the 
motive. Was it escape from Dale? Had she, woman- 
like, taken the step which she was so anxious to avoid — 
and in order to avoid taking which all this bother had 
arisen — and given the boy his dismissal? If so, why 
had she not gone to Paris or St. Petersburg or Terra del 
Fuego? Why Algiers? Dale abandoned outright, the 
neces^ty for finding her husband had disappeared. 
Perhaps she was coming to request me, on that account, 
to give up the search. But why travel across seas and 
continents when a telegram or a letter would have suf- 
ficed? She was coming, at any rate; and as she gave 



132 SIMON THE JESTER 

DO date I presumed that she would travel straight through 
and arrive in about forty-eight hours. This reflection 
caused a gleam of sunslune to traverse my gloom. I 
was not physically capable of performing the journey 
to Tlemcen and back before her arrival. I could, 
therefore, dream among the roses of the garden for an- 
other couple of days. And when she came, perhaps 
she would like to go to Tlemcen herself and try the 
effect of her woman's fascinations on the Lieutenant- 
Colonel and officers of the 3rd Raiment of Chasseurs 
d'Afrique. 

In any case, her sudden departure argued well for 
Dale's liberation. If the rupture had occurred I was 
quite contented. That is what I had wished to accom- 
plish. It only remained now to return to London, while 
breath yet stayed in my body, and lead him diplomati- 
cally to the feet of Maisie Ellerton. Then I would have 
ended my eumoirous task, and my last happy words 
would be a paternal benediction. But all the same, I 
had set forth to find this confoimded captain and did not 
want to be hindered. The sportsman's instinct which, 
in my robust youth, had led me to crawl miles on my 
belly over wet heather in order to get a shot at a stag, 
I found, somewhat to my alarm, was lupng me on this 
chase after Captain Vauvenarde. He was my quarry. 
I resented interference. Deer-stalking then, and man- 
stalking now, I wanted no petticoats in the party. I 
worked myself up into an absurd state of irritability. 
Why was she coming to spoil the sport ? I had arranged 
to track her husband down, reason with him, work on 
his feelings, telegraph for his wife, and in an affecting 
interview throw them into each other's arms. Now, 
goodness knows what would happen. Certainly not 
my beautifully conceived coup de thMre. 

*' And she has the impertinence," I cried in my wrath, 
''to sign herself 'Lola' I As if I ever called her, or 



SIMON THE JESTER 133 

could ever be in a position to call her 'Lola'! I should 
like to know," I exclaimed, hurling the ''Indicateur des 
Chemins de Fer" on to the seat of a summer-house, built 
after the manner of a little Greek temple, '' I should like 
to know what the deuce she means by it!" 

"Hallo! Hallo! What the devil's the matter?" 
cried a voice; and I found I had disturbed from his 
slumbers an unnoticed Colonel of British Cavalry. 

"A thousand pardons!" said I. "I thought I was 
alone, and gave vent to the feelings of the moment." 

Colonel Bunnion stretched himself and joined me. 

"That's the worst of this place," he said. "It's so 
liverish. One lolls about and sleeps all day long, and 
one's liver gets like a Strasburg goose's and plays Old 
Harry with one's temper. Why one should come here 
when there are pheasants to be shot in England, I don't 
know." 

" Neither your liver nor your temper seem to be much 
affected. Colonel," said I, "for you've been violently 
awakened from a sweet sleep and are in a most amiable 
frame of mind." 

He laughed, suggested exercise, the Briton's panacea 
for all ills, and took me for a walk. When we returned 
at dusk, and after I had had tea before the fire (for 
December evenings in Algiers are chilly) in one of the 
pretty Moorish alcoves of the lounge, my good humour 
was restored. I viewed our pursuit of Captain Vau- 
venarde in its right aspect — that of a veritable Snark- 
Hunt of which I was the Bellman — and the name "Lola" 
curled itself lound my heart with the same grateful 
sensation of comfort as the warm China tea. After 
all, it was only as Lola that I thought of her. The 
name fitted her personality, which Brandt did not. 
Out of "Brandt" I defy you to get any curvilinear 
suggestion. I reflected dreamily that it would be plea- 
sant to walk with her among the roses in the simshine 



134 SIMON THE JESTER 

and to drink tea with her in dusky Moorish alcoves. I 
also thought, with an enjoyable spice of malice, of 
what the retired Colonels and elderly maiden ladies 
would have to say about Lola when she arrived. They 
would have a gorgeous time. 

So light-hearted did I become that, the next evening, 
while I was dressing for dinner, I did not frown when 
the chasseur brought me up the huge trilingual vi^ting- 
card of Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos. 

" Show the gentleman up," said I. 

Rogers handed me my black tie and began to gather 
together discarded garments so as to make the room 
tidy for the visitor. It was a comfortable bed-sitting- 
room, with the bed in an alcove and a tiny dressing- 
room attached. A wood fire burned on the hearth on 
each side of which was an armchair. Presently there 
came a knock at the door. Rogers opened it and ad- 
mitted Papadopoulos, who forthwith began to exe- 
cute his usual manoeuvres of salutation. Rogers stood 
staring and open-mouthed at the apparition. It took 
all his professional training in imperturbability to enable 
him to make a decent exit. This increased my good 
hmnour. I grasped the dwarfs hand. 

"My dear Professor, I am delighted to see you. 
Pray excuse my receiving you in this unceremonious 
fashion, and sit down by the fire." 

I hastily completed my toilette by stuffing my watch, 
letter-case, loose change and handkerchief into my 
pockets, and took a seat opposite him. 

"It is I," said he politely, "who must apologise for 
this imtimely call. I have wanted to pay my respects 
to you since I arrived in Algiers, but till now I have had 
no opportunity." 

" Allow me, " s^d I, " to disembarrass you of your hat." 

I took the high-crowned, flat-brimmed thing which 
he was niursing somewhat nervously on his knees, and 



k 



SIMON THE JESTER 135 

put it on the table. He murmured that I was **Sehr 
ainuMe" 

"And the charming Monsieur Saupiquet, how is 
he?" I asked. 

He drew out his gilt-embossed pocket-book, and from 
it extracted an envelope. 

" This," said he, handing it to me, " is the receipt. I 
have to thank you again for regulating the debt, as it 
has enabled me to transact with Monsieur Saupiquet 
the business on which I summoned him from Toulon. 
He is the most obstinate, pig-headed camel that ever 
lived, and I believe he has returned to Toulon in the best 
of h^th. No, thank you," he added, refusing my offer 
of cigarettes, "I don't smoke. It disturbs the perfect 
adjustment of my nerves, and so imperils my gigantic 
combinations. It is also distasteful to my cats." 

"You must miss them greatly," said I. 

He sighed — ^then his face lit up with inspiration. 

"Ah, signorl What would one not sacrifice for an 
idea, for duty, for honour, for the happiness of those we 
love?" 

"Those are sentiments. Monsieur Papadopoulos," I 
remarked, "which do you infinite credit." 

"And, therefore, I express them, sir," he replied, "to 
show you what manner of man I am." He paused for 
a moment; then bending forward, his hands on his 
little knees — he was sitting far back in the chair and 
his legs were dangling like a child's — ^he regarded me 

intently. 
"Would you be equally chivalrous for the sake of an 

idea?" 

I replied that I hoped I should conduct myself en 
galanl hamme in any circumstances. 

" I knew it," he cried. " My intuition is never wrong. 
An English statesman is as fearless as Agamenmon, 
and as wise as Nestor. Have you your evening free?" 



136 SIMON THE JESTER 

"Yes," I replied wonderingly. 

"Would you care to devote it to a perilous adven- 
ture? Not so perilous, for I, moi-mhne^^ — ^he thumped 
his chest—" will be there. But still moUo gefakrlichy 

His black eyes held mine in burning intensity. So as 
to hide a smile I lit a cigarette. I know not what little 
imp in motley possessed me that evening. He seemed 
to hit me over the head with his bladder, and coimsel 
me to play the fool like himself, for once in my life be- 
fore I died. I could almost hear him speaking. 

"Surely a crazy dwarf out of a nightmare is more 
entertaining company than decayed Colonels of British 
Cavalry." 

I blew two or three puffs of my cigarette, and met my 
guest's eager gaze. 

"I shall be happy to put myself at your disposal/' 
said L " May I ask, without indiscretion ? " 

"No, no," he interrupted, "don't ask. Secrecy is 
part of the gigantic combination. En galatU hommCj I 
require of you — confidence." 

With an irresistible touch of mockery I said: "Pro- 
fessor Papadopoulos, I will be happy to follow you blind- 
fold to the lair of whatever fire-breathing dragon you 
may want me to help you destroy." 

He rose and grasped his hat and made me a profound 
bow. 

"You will not find me wanting in courage. Monsieur. 
There is another small favour I would ask of you. Wl!^ 
you bring some of your visiting-cards?" 

"\Wth pleasure," said I. 

At that moment the gong clanged loudly through the 
hotel. 

"It is your dinner-hour," said the dwarf. "I depart. 
Our rendez-vaus ^" 

"Let us have no rendez-vaus j my dear Professor," I 
interposed. "What more simple than that you should 



SIMON THE JESTER 137 

do me tbe pleasure of dining with me here? We can 
thus fortify ourselves with food and drink for our 
adventure, and we can start on it comfortably together 
whenever it seems good to you." 

The little man put his head on one side and looked at 
me in an odd way. 

"Do you mean," he asked in a softened voice, "that 
you ask me to dine with you in tbe midst of your aris- 
tocratic compatriots?" 

"Why, evidently," said I, baflSed. "It's only an 
ordinary bMe d!hdie dinner." 

To my astonishment, tears actually spurted out of the 
eyes of the amazing Uttle creature. He took my hand 
and before I knew what he was going to do with it he bad 
touched it with his lips. 

" My dear Professor!" I cried in dismay. 

He put up a pudgy hand, and said with great d^nity: 

"I cannot dme with you. Monsieur de Gex. But I 
ihank you from my heart for your generous kindness. 
I sbaU never forget it to my dying day." 

" But " 

He would listen to no protests. "If you will do me 
the honour of coming at nine o'clock to the Caf£ de 
Bordeaux, at the comer of the Place du Gouvemement, 
I shall be there. Auf wiedersehen, Monsieur, and a 
thousand thanks. I beg you as a favour not to accom- 
pany me. I couldn't b«ir it." 

And, drawing a great white handkerchief from his 
pocket, he wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and disap- 
peared like a flash through the door which I held open 
for him. 

I went down to dinner in a chastened mood. The 
little man had not shown me before the pathetic side of 
the freak's life. By asking him to dinner as if be were 
normal I had earned his etema! gratitude. And yet 
with a smile, which I trust the Recording Angel when he 



138 SIMON THE JESTER 

makes up my final balance-sheet of good and eril will 
not ascribe to an unfeeling heart, I could not bdp for- 
mulating the hope that his gratitude would not be shown 
by presents of China fowls sitting on eggs, Tjrrolese 
ch&lets and bottles with ladders and little men inside 
them. I did not feel within me the wide charity of Lola 
Brandt; and I could not repress a smile, as 1 ate my 
solitary meal, at the perils of the adventure to which I 
was invited. I had no doubt that it bore the same 
relation to danger as Mon^eur Saupiquet's sevenpence- 
halfpenny bore to a serious debt. 

Colonel Bunnion, a genial little red-faced man, with 
bulgy eyes and a moustache too big for his body, who 
sat, also solitary, at the next table to mine, suddenly 
began to utter words which I discovered were addressed 
to me. 

''Most amazing thing happened to me as I was com- 
ing down to dinner. Just got out of the corridor to the 
foot of the stairs, when down rushed something about 
three foot nothing in a devil of a top-hat and butted me 
full in the pit of the stomach, and bounded off like a foot- 
ball. When I picked it up I found it was a man — give 
you my word — it was a man. About so high. Gave 
me quite a turn." 

"That," said I, with a smile, "v^as my friend Pro- 
fessor Anastasius Papadopoulos." 

"A friend of vours?" 

"He had just been calling on me." 

"Then I wish you'd entreat him not to go down- 
stairs like a six-inch shell. I'll have a bruise to-morrow 
where the crown of his hat caught me as big as a soup- 
plate." 

I offered the cheerily indignant warrior apologies for 
my friend's parabolic method of descent, and suggested 
Elliman's Embrocation. 

"The most extraordinary part of it," he inteirapted, 



SIMON THE JESTER 139 

''was that when I picked hun up he was weeping like 
anything. What was he crying about?*' 

"He is a sensitive creature," said I, "and he doesn't 
come upon the pit of the stomach of a Colonel of British 
Cavalry every day in the week." 

He sniffed imcertainly at the remark for a second or 
two and then broke into a laugh and asked me to play 
bridge after dinner. On the two preceding evenings he 
and I had attempted to cheer, in this manner, the deso- 
lation of a couple of the elderly maiden ladies. But I 
may say, parenthetically, that as he played bridge as if he 
were l^uiing a cavalry charge according to a text-book on 
tactics, and as I play card games in a soft, mental twi- 
light, and as the two ladies were very keen bridge play- 
ers indeed, I had great doubts as to the success of our 
attempts. 

"I'm sorry," said I, "but Fm going down into the town 
to-night." 

"Theatre? If so, TU go with you." 

The gallant gentleman was always at a loose end. 
Unless he could persuade another himian being to do 
something with him — ^no matter what — he would joy- 
fully have played cat's cradle with me by the hour — he sat 
in awful boredom meditating on his liver. 

"I'm not going to the theatre," I said, "and I wish I 
could ask you to accompany me on mv adventure." 

The Colonel raised his eyebrows. I laughed. 

" Fm not going to twang guitars under balconies." 

The Colonel reddened and swore he had never thougnt 
of such a thing. He was a perjured villain; but I did 
not tell him so. 

"In what my adventure will consist I can't say," I 
remarked. 

"If you're going to fool about Algiers at night you'd 
better carry a revolver." 

I told him I did not possess such deadly weapons. 



I40 SIMON THE JESTER 

He offered to lend me one. The two Misses Bostock 
from South Shields, who sat at a table within earshot 
and had been following our conversation, manifested 
signs of exdted interest 

''I shall be quite protected," said I, "by the dyna- 
mic qualities of your acquaintance, Professor Anas- 
tasius Papadopoulos, with whom I have promised to 
q)end the evening." 

"You had better have the revolver," said the Colonel 
And so bent was he on the point, that after dinner he 
came to me in the lounge and laid a loaded six-shooter 
beside my coffee-cup. The younger Miss Bostock grew 
pale. It looked an ugly, cumbrous, devastating weapon. 

"But, my dear Colonel," I protested, "it's against the 
law to carry iSre-arms." 

"Law— what law?" 

"Why the law of France," said I. 

This staggered him. The fact of there being decent 
laws in foreign parts has staggered many an honest 
Briton. He counselled a damnation of the law, and 
finally, in order to humour him, I allowed him to thrust 
the imcomfortable thing into my hip-pocket 

"Colonel," said I, when I took leave of him an hour 
later, "I have armed myself out of pure altruism. I 
shan't be able to sit down in peace and comfort for the 
rest of the evening. Should I accidentally do so, my 
blood will be on your head." 



CHAPTER Xn 

The tram that passes the hotel gates took me into the 
town and dropped me at the Place du Gouvemement. 
With its strange fusion of East and West, its great 
white-domed mosque flanked by the tall minaret con- 
trasting with its formal French colonnaded facades, its 
groupings of majestic white-robed forms and conmion- 
place figures in caps and hard felt hats; the mystery of 
its palm trees, and the crudity of its flaring electric 
lights, it gave an impression of unreality, of a modem 
contractor's idea of Fairyland, where anything gro- 
tesque might assume an air of normality. The moon 
shone full in the heavens, and as I crossed the Place I 
saw the equestrian statue of the Duke of Orleans silhou- 
etted against the mosque. The port, to the east, was 
quiet at this hour, and the shipping lay dreamily in the 
moonlight. Far away one could see the dim outlines 
of the Kabyle Mountains, and the vague melting of sea 
and sky into a near horizon. The imdefinable smell of 
the East was in the air. 

The Caf^ de Bordeaux, which forms an angle of the 
Place, blazed in front of me. A few hardy souls, a 
Zouave or two, an Arab, a bored Englishman and his 
wife, and some French inhabitants were sitting outside 
iQ the chilliness. I entered. The csii was filled with a 
nondescript crowd, and the rattle of dominoes rose 
above the hum of talk. In a comer near the door I dis- 
covered the top of a silk hat projecting above a widely 
opened newspaper grasped by two pudgy hands, and I 
recognised the Professor. 

"Monsieur," said he, when I had taken a seat at his 

141 



142 SIMON THE JESTER 

table, "if the unknown terrors which you are going to 
confront dismay you, I beg that you will not consider 
yourself bound to me." 

" My dear Professor/' I replied, " a brave man tastes 
of death but once." 

He was much delighted at the sentiment, which he 
took to be original. 

"I shall quote it," said he, "whenever my honour or 
my courage is called into question. It is not often that 
a man has the temerity to do so. Can I have the honour 
of offering you a whisky and soda?" 

"Have we time?" I asked. 

"We have time," he said, solemnly consulting his 
watch. " Things will ripen." 

" Then," said I, " I shall have much pleasure in drink- 
ing to their maturity." 

While we were drinking our whisky and soda he 
talked volubly of many things — his travels, his cats, his 
own incredible importance in the cosmos. And as he 
sat there vapouring about the pathetically insignificant 
he look^ more like Napoleon III. than ever. His eyes 
had the same mournful depths, his features the same 
stamp of fatality. Each man had his gigantic com- 
binations — perhaps equally important in the eyes of the 
High Gods. I was fdled with an inmiense pity for 
Napoleon III. 

Of the object of the adventure he said nothing. As 
secrecy seemed to be a vital element in his fifteen-cent 
scheme, I showed no embarrassing curiosity. Indeed, 
I felt but little, though I was certain that the adventure 
was connected with the world-cracking revelations of 
Monsieur Saupiquet, and was undertaken in the interest 
of his beloved lady, Lola Brandt. But it was like play- 
ing at pirates with a child, and my pity for Napoleon 
gave place to pity for my valiant but childish little friend. 

At last he looked again at his watch. 



SIMON THE JESTER 143 

"The hour has struck. Let us proceed." 

Instinctively I summoned the waiter, and drew a 
coin from my pocket; when the grown-up person and 
the small boy hobnob together the former pa)^. But 
Anastasius, ^h a swift look of protest, anticipated my 
intention* I was his guest for the evening. I 3delded 
apologetically, the score was paid, and we went forth 
into the moonlight. 

He led me across the Place du Grouvemement and 
struck straight up the hill past the Cathedral, and, turn- 
ing, plimged into a network of narrow streets, where 
the poor of all races lived together in amity and evil 
odours. Shops chiefly occupied the ground floors; some 
were the ordinary hmnble shops of Europeans; others were 
caves lit by a smoky lamp, where Arabs lounged and 
smoked aroimd the tailors or cobblers squatting at their 
work; others were Jewish, with Hebrew inscriptions. 
There were dark Arab caf&, noisy Italian wine-shops, 
butchers' stalls; children of all ages played and screamed 
about the precipitous cobble-paved streets; and the 
shrill cries of Jewish women, sitting at their doors, 
rose in rebuke of husband or offspring. Not many 
lights appeared through the shuttered windows of the 
dark, high houses. Overhead, between the two facades, 
one saw a strip of paleness which one knew was the 
moonlit sky. Conversation with my companion being 
diflScult — ^the top of his silk hat just reached my elbow — 
I strode along in silence, Anastasius trotting by my 
ide. Many jeers and jests were flung at us as we 
passed, whereat he scowled terribly; but no one mo- 
lested us. I am inclined to think that Anastasius at- 
tributed this to fear of his fierce demeanour. If so, 
he was happy, as were the simple souls who flouted; 
and this reflection kept my mind serene. 

Presently we turned into a wide and less poverty- 
stricken street, which I felt sure we could have reached 



144 SIMON THE JESTER 

by a less tortuous and malodorous path. A few yards 
down we came to a dark porte cochire. The dwarf 
halted, crossed, so as to read the number, by the gas 
lamp, and joining me, said: 

"It is here. Have you your visiting-cards ready?" 

I nodded. We proceeded down the dark entry till 
we came to a slovenJy, ill-kept glass box lit by a small gas 
jet, whence emerged a slovenly, ill-kept man. This was 
the concierge. .Ajiastasius addressed a remark to him 
which I did not catch. 

"Au fond de la caur, troisUme i gat$che^^^ said the 
concierge. 

As yet there seemed to be nothing peculiarly perilous 
about the adventure. We crossed the cobble-paved 
courtyard and mounted an evil-smelling stone staircase, 
blackened here and there by the occasional gas jets. On 
the third landing we halted. Anastasius put up his 
hand and gripped mine. 

"Two strong men together,** said he, "need fear 
nothing." 

I confess my only fear was lest the confoimded revolver 
which swimg insecurely in my hip-pocket might go off of 
its own accord. I did not mention this to my companion. 
He raised his hat, wiped his brow, and rang the bell. 

The door opened about six inches, and a man's dark- 
moustachioed face appeared. 

"F^wj disireZy Messieurs f*^ 

As I had not the remotest idea what we desired, I let 
Anastasius be spokesman. 

"Here is an English milord," said Anastasius boldly, 
"who would like to be admitted for the evening to the 
privileges of the Club." 

"Enter, gentlemen," said the man, who appeared to 
be the porter. 

We found ourselves in a small vestibule. In front of 
us was a large door, on the right a small one, both dosed. 



SIMON THE JESTER 145 

At a table by the large door sat a dirty, out-of-elbows 
raven of a man reading a newspaper. The latter looked 
up and addressed me. 

"You wish to enter the Club, Mondeur?" 

I had no particular longing to do so, but I politely 
answered that such was my desire. 

"If you will give me your visiting-card, I will submit 
it to the Secrftariat." 

I produced my card; Anastasius thrust a pencil into 
my hand. 

" Write my name on it, too." 

I obeyed. The raven sent the porter with the card 
into the room on the right, and resinned the perusal of 
his soiled newspaper. I looked at Anastasius. The 
little man was quivering with excitement. The porter 
returned after a few minutes with a couple of pink oval 
cards which he handed to each of us. I glanced at 
mine. On it was inscribed: Cercle Africain d^ Alger. 
Carte de Menibre Hanoraire. Une soirSeJ* And then 
there was a line for the honorary member's signature. 
The raven man dipped a pen in the ink-pot in front of 
him and handed it to me. 

"Will you sign. Messieurs?" 

We executed this formality; he retained the cards, 
and opening the great door, said: 

" EfUreZf Messieurs I " 

The door closed behind us. It was simply a tripot, 
or gambling-<len. And all this solemn farce of Sec- 
retariats and caries d^entrie to obtain admission! It 
is ciuious how the bureaucratic instinct is ingrained 
in the French character. 

It was a large, ill-ventilated room, blue with cigarette 
and dgar smoke. Some thirty men were sitting or 
standing around a baccarat table in the centre, and two 
or three groups hung around icarti tables in the comers. 
A personage who looked like a slightly more prosperous 
10 



^ 



146 SIMON THE JESTER 

brother of the raven outside and wore a dinner-jacket, 
promenaded the room with the air of one in authority. 
He scrutinised us carefuUy from a distance; then ad- 
vanced and greeted us politely. 

^'You have chosen an excellent evening/' said he. 
''There are a great many people, and the banks are 
large." 

He bowed and passed on. A dingy waiter took our 
hats and coats and hung them up. Anastasius plucked 
me by the sleeve. 

''If you don't mind staking a little for the sake of 
s^pearances, I shall be grateful" 

I whispered: "Can you tell me now, my dear Pro- 
fessor, for what reason you have brought me to this 
gaming-hell?" 

He looked up at me out of his mournful eyes and 
miumured, ^^PaHenza^ lieber HerrP Then spying a 
vacant place behind the chairs at the baccarat table, he 
darted thither, and I followed in his wake. There must 
have been about a couple of hundred louis in the bank, 
which was held by a dissipated, middle-aged man who, 
having once been handsome in a fleshy way, had run 
to fat. His black hair, cropped short, stood up like a 
shoebrush, and when he leaned back in his chair a roll 
of flesh rose above his collar. I disliked the fellow for 
his unhealthiness, and for the hard mockery in his puffy 
eyes. The company seemed fairly homogeneous in its 
raflishness, though here and there appeared a thin, 
aristocratic face, with grey moustache and pointed 
beard, and the homely anxious visage of a small trades- 
man. But in bulk it looked an ugly, seedy crowd, with 
unwashed bodies and unclean souls. I noticed an 
Italian or two, and a villahious Englishman with a face 
like that of a dilapidated horse. A glance at the table 
plastered with silver and gold showed me that they 
were playing with a five-franc minimum. 



SIMON THE JESTER 147 

Anastasius drew a handful of louis from his pocket and 
staked one. I staked a five-franc piece. The cards were 
dealt, the banker exposed a nine, the highest number, and 
the croupier's flat spoon swept the table. A murmur 
arose. The banker was having the luck of Satan. 

" He always protects me, the good fellow," laughed the 
banker, who had overheard the remark. 

Again we staked, again the hands were dealt. Our 
tableau or end of the table won, the other lost. The 
croupier threw the coins in payment. I let my double 
stake lie, and so did Anastasius. At the next coup we 
lost again. The banker stu£fed his winnings into his 
pocket and declared a suite. The bank was put up ai 
auction, and was eventually knocked down to the same 
personage for fifty louis. The horse-headed Englishman 
cried *^banco^" which means that he would play the 
banker for the whole amount. The hands were dealt, 
the Englishman lost, and the game started afresh with 
a hundred louis in the bank. The proceedings began to 
bore me. Even if my experience of life had not sug- 
gested that scrupulous fairness and honour were not the 
guiding principles of such an assemblage, I should have 
taken little interest in the game. I am a great believer 
in the wholesomeness of compounding for sins you are 
inclined to by damning those you have no mind to. It 
aids the nice balance of life. And gambling is one of 
the sins I delight to damn. The rapid getting of money 
has never appealed to me, who have always had suf- 
ficient for my moderately epicurean needs, and least of 
all did it appeal to me now when I was on the brink of 
my journey to the land where French gold and bank 
notes were not in currency. I repeat, therefore, that 
I was bored. 

"If the perils of the adventure don't begin soon, my 
dear Professor," I whispered, "I shall go to sleep 
standing." 



148 SIMON THE JESTER 

Again he asked for patience and staked a hundred- 
franc note. At that moment the man sitting at the 
table in front of him rose, and the dwarf slipped swiftly 
into his seat. He won his hundred francs and made the 
same stake again. It was obvious that the little man 
did not damn gambling. It was a sin to which he ap- 
peared peculiarly inclined. The true inwardness of 
the perilous adventure began to dawn on me. He had 
come here to make the money wherewith he could 
fiuther his gigantic combinations. All this mjrstery 
was part of his childish cimning. I hardly knew whether 
to box the little creature's ears, to box my own, or to 
laugh. I compromised with a smile on the last alter- 
native, and baccarat being a dreary game to watch, I 
strolled off to the nearest icarti table, and, to justify my 
presence in the room, backed one of the players. 

Presently my attention was called to the baccarat 
table by a noise as of some dispute, and turning, I saw 
the gentleman in the dinner-jacket hurrying to what 
appeared to be the storm centre, the place where 
Anastasius was sitting. Suspecting some minor peril, 
I left the icarti players, and joined the gentleman in the 
dinner-jacket. It seemed that the hand, which is played 
in rotation by those seated at each tableau or half-table, 
had come round for the first time to Anastasius, and 
objection had been taken to his playing it, on the score 
of his physical appearance. The dwarf was protesting 
vehemently. He had played baccarat in all the clute 
of Europe, and had never received such treatment* 
It was infamous, it was insulting. The malcontents 
of the punt paid little heed to his remonstrances. They 
resented the entrusting of their fortunes to one whose 
chin barely rose above the level of the table. The 
banker lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair with a 
smile of mockery. His attitude brought up the super- 
fluous flesh about his chin and the roll of fat at the back 



SIMON THE JESTER 149 

of his neck. With his moustache en croc^ and his shoe- 
brush hair, I have rarely beheld a more sensual- 
looking desperado. 

"But, gentlemen," said he, "I see no objection what- 
ever to Monsieur playing the hand." 

"Naturally," retorted a voice, "since it would be to 
yoiu: advantage." 

The raven in the dinner-jacket commanded silence. 

"Gentlemen, I decide that, according to the rules of 
the game, Monsieur is entitled to play the hand." 

"Bravo!" exclaimed one or two of my friend's 
supporters. 

"C^5/ idiot V^ growled the malcontents. 

** Messieurs^ faites vos jeuxt" cried the croupier. 

The stakes were laid, the banker looked around, 
estimating the comparative values of the two tableaux. 
Anastasius had backed his hand with a pile of louis. 
To encourage him, and to conciliate the hostile punt, 
I threw down a hundred-franc note. 

" J>5 jeux sant fails? Rien ne va plus" 

The banker dealt, two cards to each tableau, two to 
himself. Anastasius, trembling with nervous excite- 
ment, stretched out a palsied little fist towards the cards. 
He drew them towards him, face downwards, peeped at 
them in the most approved manner, and in a husky voice 
called for an extra card. 

The card dealt face upwards was a five. The banker 
turned up his own cards, a two and a four, making 
a point of six. Naturally he stood. Anastasius did 
nothing. 

"Show your cards — show jrour cards!" cried several 
voices. 

He turned over the two cards originally dealt to him. 
They were a king and a nine, making the natural nine, 
the highest point, and he had actually asklsd for another 
card. It was the unforgivable sin. The five that had 



150 SIMON THE JESTER 

been dealt to him brought his point to four. There was 
a roar of indignation. Men with violent faces rose and 
cursed him, and shook their fists at him. Others 
clamoured that the coup was ineflfective. They were not 
going to be at the mercy of an idiot who knew nothing 
of the game. The hand must be dealt over again. 

^^ Jamais de la vie I" shouted the banker. 

"J> coup est honT^ cried the raven in authority^ and. 
the croupier's spoon hovered over the tableau. But the 
horse-headed Etiglishman clutched the two louis he 
had staked. He was damned, and a great many other 
things, if he would lose his money that way. The raven 
in the dinner-jacket darted round, and bending over 
him, caught him by the wrist Two or three others 
grabbed their stakes, and swore they would not pay. 
The banker rose and went to the r^cue of his gains. 
There was screaming and shouting and struggling and 
riot indescribable. Those round about us went on 
ciursing Anastasius, who sat quite still, with quivering 
lips, as helpless as a rabbit. The raven tore his way 
through the throng around the Englishman and came 
up to me exdted and dishevelled. 

**It is all your fault. Monsieur," he shrieked, "for in- 
troducing into the club a half-witted creature like that." 

"Yes, it's your fault," cried a low-browed, ugly fel- 
low looking^ like a butcher in uneasy circmnstances who 
stood next me. Suddenly the avalanche of indigna- 
tion fell upon my head. Angry, ugly men crowded 
round me and began to curse me instead of the dwarf. 
Cries arose: **Jetez-les 4 la porter^ The adventure 
began, indeed, to grow idiotically perilous. I had never 
been thrown out of doors in my life. I objected strongly 
to the idea. It might possibly hurt my body, and would 
certainly offend my dignity. I felt that I could not make 
my exit through the portals of life with the urbanity 
on which I counted, if, as a preparatory step, I had 



SIMON THE JESTER 151 

been thrown out of a gambling-hell. There were only 
two things to be done. Either I must whip out my 
ridiculous revolver and do some free shooting, or I must 
make an appeal to the lower feelings of the assembly. 
I chose the latter alternative. With a sudden move- 
ment I slipped through the angry and gesticulating 
crowd, and leaped on a chair by one of the deserted 
icarU tables. Then I raised a commanding arm, and, 
in my best election-meeting voice, I cried: 

''Messieursr 

The imexpectedness of the manoeuvre caused instant 
silence. 

"As my friend and myself," I said, "are the cause of 
this unpleasant confusion, I shall be most happy to 
pay the banker the losses of the tableau.^* 

And I drew out and brandished my pocket-book, in 
which, by a special grace of Providence, there happened 
to be a considerable sum of money. 

Miumurs of approbation arose. Then the Englishman 
sang out: 

"But what about the money we would have won, if 
that little fool had played the game properly ? " 

The remark was received with cheers. 

"That amount, too," said I, "I shall be happy to 
disburse." 

There was nothing more to be said, as everybody, 
banker and pimt, were satisfied. The raven in the 
dinner-jacket came up and informed me that my pro- 
posal solved the difficulty. I besought him to make 
out the bill for my little entertainment as quickly as 
possible. Then I dismounted from my chair and 
beckoned to the dwarf, still sitting white and piteous, 
to join me. He obeyed like a frightened child who had 
been naughty. All his swagger and braggadocio were 
gone. His bosom heaved with suppressed sobs. He 
sat down on the chair I had vacated and buried his face 



152 SIMON THE JESTER 

on the icarti table. We reinained thus aloof from the 
crowd who were intent on the calculation at the bac- 
carat table. At last the raven in the dinner-jacket 
arrived with a note of the amount. It was two thou- 
sand three hundred francs. I gave him the notes, and, 
taking Anastasius by the arm, led him to the door, 
where the waiter stood with our hats and coats. Be- 
fore we could reach it, however, the banker, who had 
risen from his seat, crossed the room and addressed me. 

"Monsieur," said he, with an air of high-bred cour- 
tesy, ''I infinitely regret this unpleasant a£fair and 
I thank you for your perfect magnanimity." 

I did not suggest that with equal magnanimity he 
might refund the forty-six pounds that had found its 
way from my pocket to his, but I bowed with stiflF po- 
liteness, and made my exit with as much dignity as 
the attachment to my heels of the crestfallen Anastasius 
would permit. 

Outside I constituted myself the guide, and took the 
first turning downhill, knowing that it would lead to 
the civilised centre of the town. The dwarfs roimd- 
about route was characteristic of his tortuous mind. 
We walked along for some time without saying any- 
thing. I could not find it in my heart to reproach the 
little man for the expensiveness (nearly a hundred 
pounds) of his perilous adventure, and he seemed too 
dazed with shame and humiliation to speak. At last, 
when we reached, as I anticipated, the Square de la 
Republlque, I patted him on the shoulder. 

"Cheer up, my dear Professor," said I. "We both 
are acquainted with nobler things than the ins and outs 
of gaming-hells." 

He reeled to a bench under the palm trees, and burst 
ing into tears, gave vent to his misery in the most in 
coherent language ever uttered by man. I sat besid 
him and vainly attempted consolation. 



SIMON THE JESTER 153 

"Ah, how mad I am! Ah, how contemptible! I 
dare not face my beautiful cats again. I dare not see 
the light of the sun (la lumihre der Sonne). I have 
betrayed my trust. Accursed be the cards. I, who 
had my gigantic combination. It is all gone. Beauti- 
ful lady, forgive me. Generous-hearted friend, forgive 
me. I am the most miserable of God's creatures." 

''It is an accident that might happen to any one," 
I said gently. "You were nervous. You looked at 
the cards, you mistook the nine for a ten, in which case 
you were right to call for another card." 

" It is not that," he wailed. " It is the spoiling of my 
combination, on which I have wasted sleepless nights. 
A ciu-se on my mad folly. Do you know who the banker 
was?" 

"No," said I. 

"He was Captain Vauvenarde, the husband of 
Madame Brandt." 



CHAPTER Xm 

You could have knocked me down with a feather. It is 
a trite metaphor, I know; but it is none the less excel- 
lent. I repeat, therefore, imblushingly — ^jrou could 
have knock^ me down with a feather. I gasped. The 
little man wiped his eyes. He was the tearfuUest adult 
I have ever met, and I once knew an Italian prima donna 
with a temperament. 

^Xaptain Vauvenarde? That man with the shoe- 
brush hair and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck? 
Are you sure?" 

The dwarf nodded. ''I set out from England to find 
him. I swore to the carissima signora that I would do 
so. I have done it," he added, with a faint return of 
his self-confidence. 

"Well, I'm damned I" said I, in my native tongue. 

I don't often use strong language; but the occasion 
warranted it. I was flabbergasted, bewildered, out- 
raged, humiliated, delighted, incredulous, and generally 
turned topsy-turvy. In conversation one has no time 
for so minute an analysis of one's feelings. I therefore 
summed them up in the only word. Captain Vauve- 
narde! The wild goose of my absurd chase! Found 
by this Flibbertigibbet of a fellow, while I, Simon de 
Gex, erstwhile M.P., was fooling about War Offices and 
regiments! It was grotesque. It was monstrous. It 
ought not to have been allowed. And yet it saved me 
a vast amount of trouble. 

"I'm damned!" said I. 

Anastasius had just enough English to understand* 

»54 



SIMON THE JESTER 155 

I suppose^ such is mortal unregeneracy, that it is the 
most widely imderstood word in the universe. 

"And I," said he, "am eternally beaten. I am 
trampled imder foot and shall never be able to hold up 
my head again." 

Whereupon he renewed his lamentations. For some 
time I listened patiently, and from his disconnected 
remarks I gathered that he had gone to the Cercle Afri- 
cain in view of his gigantic combinations, but that the 
demon of gambling talung {X)ssession of him had almost 
driven them from his mind. Eventually he had lost 
control of his nerves, a cloud had spread over his brain, 
and he had committed the imspeakable blunder which 
led to disaster. 

"To think that I should have tracked him down — 
for this!" he exclaimed tragically. 

"What beats me," I cried, "is how the deuce you 
managed to track him down. Youi magnificent intel- 
lect, I suppose" — ^I spoke gently and not in open sar- 
casm — "enabled you to get on the trail." 

He brightened at the compliment. "Yes« that was 
it. Listen. I came to Algiers, the last place he was 
heard of. I go to the caf€s. I listen like a detective 
to conversation. I creep behind soldiers talking. I 
find out nothing. I ask at the shops. They think I am 
crazy, but Anastasius Papadopoulos has a brain larger 
than theirs. I go to my old friend the secretary of the 
theatre, where I have exhibited the marvellous per- 
formance of my cats. I say to him, 'When have you a 
date for me?' He says, 'Next year.' I make a note 
of it. We talk. He luiows all Algiers. I say to him, 
'What has become of Captain Vauvenarde of the Chas- 
seurs d'Afrique?' I say it carelessly as if the Captain 
were .an old friend of mine. The secretary laughs. 
^Haven't you heard? The Captain was chased from 
the re^ment ^ " 



156 SIMON THE JESTER 

"The deuce he was!" I interjected. 

"On account of something," said Anastasius. "The 
secretary could not tell what. Perhaps he cheated at 
cards. The officers said so. 

"* Where is he now?' I ask. *Why, in Algiers. He 
is the most famous gambler in the town. He is every 
night at the Cercle Africain, and some people believe 
that it belongs to him.' My friend the secretary asks 
me why I am so anxious to discover Captain Vauve- 
narde. I do not betray my secret. When I do not 
wish to talk I close my Ups, and they are sealed like the 
tomb. I am the model of discretion. You, Monsieur, 
with the high-bred delicacy of the English statesman, 
have not questioned me about my combination. I 
appreciate it. But, if you had, though it broke my 
heart, I should not have answered." 

"I am not going to pry into your schemes," I said, 
"but there are one or two things I must understand. 
How do you know the banker was Captain Vauvenarde ? " 

"I saw him several times in Marseilles with the caris- 
sima signara.^* 

"Then how was it he did not recognise you to- 
night?" 

"I was then but an acquaintance of Madame; not 
her intimate friend, counsellor, champion, as I am now. 
I did not have the honour of being presented to Captain 
Vauvenarde. I went to-night to make sure of my man, 
to play the first card in my gigantic combination — but, 
alas! But no!" He rose and thumped his little chest. 
"I feel my courage coming back. My will is stiffening 
into iron. When the carissima signara arrives in Algiers 
she will find she has a champion/ " 

"How do you know she is coming to Algiers?" I 
asked startled. 

"As soon as I learned that Captain Vauvenarde was 
here," he replied proudly, " I sent her a telq;ram, * Hus- 



SIMON THE JESTER 157 

band found; come at once.' I know she is coming, for 
die has not answered." 

An idea occurred to me. "Did you sign your name 
and address on the telegram?" 

He approached me confidentially as I sat, and wagged 
a ciuming finger. 

"In matters of life and death, never give yoiu- name 
and address." 

As Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos was himself 
again, and as I began to sneeze — ^for the night was chilly 
— ^I rose and suggested that we might adjourn this con- 
ference till the morrow. He acquiesced, saying that all 
was not lost and that he still had time to mature his 
combinations. We crossed the road, and I hailed a cab 
standing by the Cafd d' Alger. I offered Anastasius to 
drive Mm to his hotel, but he declined politely. We 
shook hands. 

"Monsieur," said he, "I have to make my heartfelt 
apologies for having caused you so painful, so useless, 
and so expensive an evening. As for the last aspect I 
will repay you." 

"You will do no such thing, Professor," said I. "My 
evening has, on the contrary, been particularly useful 
and instructive. I wouldn't have missed it for the 
world." 

And I drove off homewards, glad to be in my own 
company. 

Here was an imbroglio I The missing husband found 
and, like most missing husbands, found to be entirely 
imdesirable. And Lola, obviously imagining her sum- 
mons to be from me, was at that moment speeding 
hither as fast as the Marichal Bugeaud could carry her. 
If I had discovered Captain Vauvenarde instead of 
Anastasius I would have anathematised him as the most 
meddlesome, crazy little marplot that ever looked like 
Napoleon the Third. But as the credit of the discovery 



158 SIMON THE JESTER 

belonged to him and not to me, I could onlj anathema- 
tise myself for my dilettanteism in the capacity of a 
private inquiry agent. 

I went to bed and slept badly. The ludicrous scenes 
of the evening danced before my eyes; the smoke-filled, 
sordid room, the ignoble faces round the table, the 
foolish hullaballoo, the collapse of Anastasius, my melo- 
dramatic intervention, and the ironical courtesy of the 
fleshy Captain Vauvenarde. Also, in the small hours of 
the night, Anastasius's gigantic combinations assumed 
a less trivial aspect. What lunatic scheme was being 
hatched behind that dome-like brow? His object in 
taking me to the club was obvious. He could not have 
got in save under my protection. But what he had 
reckoned upon doing when he got there Heaven and 
Anastasius Papadopoulos only knew. I was also wor- 
ried by the confounded little pain inside. 

On the following afternoon I went down to meet the 
steamer from Marseilles. I more than expected to find 
the dwarf on the quay, but to my relief he was not there. 
I had purposely kept my knowledge of Lola's movements 
a secret from him, as I desired as far as possible to 
conduct affairs without his crazy intervention. I was 
not sorry, too, that he had not availed himself of my 
proposal to visit me that morning and continue our 
omversation of the night before. The grotesque as a 
decoration of life is valuable; as the main feature it 
gets on your nerves. 

I stood on the sloping stone jetty among the crowd 
of Arab porters and Europeans and watched the vessel 
waddle in. Lola and I, catcliing sight of each other at 
the same time, waved handkerchiefs in an imbecile 
manner, and when the vessel came alongside, and during 
the tedious process of mooring, we regarded each other 
with photographic smiles. She was wearing a squirrel 
coat and a toque of the same fur, and she looked more 



SIMON THE JESTER 159 

like a splendid wild animal than ever. Something inside 
me — ^not the little pain — ^but what must have been my 
heart, throbbed suddenly at her beauty, and the throb 
was followed by a sudden sense of shock at the realisa- 
tion of my keen pleasure at the sight of her. A wistful 
radiance shone in her face as she came down the gang- 
way. 

'^Ohy how kind, how good, how splendid of you to 
meet me!" she cried as our hands clasped. ''I was 
dreading, dreading, dreading that it might be some one 
else." 

"And yet you came straight through," said I, still 
holding her hand — or, rather, allowing hers to encircle 
mine in the familiar grip. 

"Didn't you command me to do so?" 

I could not explain matters to her then and there 
among the hustle of passengers and the bustle of porters. 
Besides, Rogers, who had come down with the hotel 
onmibus, was at my side touching his hat. 

"I have ordered you a room and a private sitting- 
room with a balcony facing the sea. Put yourself in 
charge of me and your luggage in charge of Rogers and 
dismiss all thoughts of worry from your mind." 

"You are so restful," she laughed as we moved off. 

Then she scanned my face and said falteringly, "How 
thin and worn you look ! Are you worse ? " 

"If you ask me such questions," said I, "I'll leave 
you with the luggage in charge of Rogers. I am in 
resplendent health." 

She murmured that she wished she could believe me, 
and took my arm as we walked down the jetty to the 
waiting cab. 

"It's good to hear your voice again," I said. "It's 
a lazy voice and fits in with the lazy South." I pointed 
to the burnous-enveloped Arabs sleeping on the parapet. 
" It's out of place in Cadogan Gardens." 



i6o SIMON THE JESTER 

She laughed her low, rippling laugh. It was music 
very pleasant to hear after the somewhat shrill cachin- 
nation of the Misses Bostock of South Shields. I was so 
pleased that I gave half a franc to a pestilential Arab 
shoeblack. 

"That was nice of you," she said. 

"It was the act of an imbecile," I retorted. "I have 
now rendered it imjX)ssible for me to enter the town 
again. How is Dale?" 

She started. "He's well. Busy with his election. 
I saw him the day before I left. I didn't tell him I was 
coming to Algiers. I wrote from Paris." 

"Telling him the reason?" 

She faced me and met my eyes and said shortly: " No." 

"Oh!" said I. 

This brought us to the cab. We entered and drove 
away. Then leaning back and looking straight in front 
of her, she grasped my wrist and said: 

"Now, my dear friend, tell me all and get it over.** 

"My dear Madame Brandt " I b^an. 

She interrupted me. "For goodness' sake don't call 
me that. It makes a cold shiver nm down my back. 
I'm either Lola to you or nothing." 

"Then, my dear Lola," said I, "the first thing I must 
tell you is that I did not send for you." 

" What do you mean ? The telegram ? " 

" It was sent by Anastasius Papadopoulos." 

"Anastasius?" She bent forward and looked at me. 
"What is he doing here?" 

"Heaven knows!" said I. "But what he has done 
has been to find Captain Vauvenarde. I am glad he 
has done that, but I am deeply sorry he sent you the 
telegram." 

"Sorry? Why?" 

"Beoiuse there was no reason for your coming," I 
said with unwonted gravity. "It would have been 



SIMON THE JESTER i6i 

better if you had stayed in London, and it will be best 
if you take the boat back again to-morrow." 

She remained silent for a while. Then she said in a 
low voice: 

" He won't have me ? " 

''He hasn't been asked," I said. "He will, as far as 
I can command the situation, never be asked." 

On that I had fully determined; and, when she in- 
quired the reason, I told her. 

"I proposed that you should reimite yourself with an 
honourable though somewhat misguided gentleman. 
I've had the reverse of pleasure in meeting Captain 
Vauvenarde, and I regret to say, though he is still mis- 
guided, he can scarcely be termed honourable. The term 
'gentleman' has still to be accurately defined." 

She made a writhing movement of impatience. 

"Tell me straight out what he's doing in Algiers. 
You're trying to make things easy for me. It's the way 
of your class. It isn't the way of mine. I'm used to 
brutality. I like it better. Why did he leave the army 
and why is he in Algiers?" 

"If you prefer the direct method, my dear Lola," 
said I — and the name came quite trippingly on my tongue 
— "rU employ it. Your husband has apparently been 
kicked out of the army and is now nmning a gambling- 
heU." 

She took the blow bravely; but it turned her face 
haggard like a paroxysm of physical pain. After a few 
moments' silence, she said: 

"It must have been awful for him. He was a proud 
man." 

"He is changed," I replied gently. "Pride is too 
hampering a quality for a knight of industry to keep in 
his equipment." 

"Tell me how you met him," she said. 

I rapidly sketched the whole absurd history, from my 
II 



i62 SIMON THE JESTER 

encounter with Anastasius Papadopoulos in Marseilles 
to my parting with him on the previous night. I softened 
down, as much as I could, the fleshiness of Captain 
Vauvenarde and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck, 
but I portrayed the villainous physiognomies of his 
associates very neatly. I concluded by repeating my 
assertion that our project had proved itself to be abortive. 

"He must be pretty miserable," said Lola. 

" DevU a bit," said I. 

She did not answer, but settled herself more comfort- 
ably in the carriage and relapsed into mournful silence. 
I, having said my say, lit a cigarette. Save for the clang- 
ing past of an upward or downward tram, the creeping 
drive up the hill through the long winding street was 
very quiet; and as we moimted higher and left the shops 
behind, the only sounds that broke the afternoon stillness 
were the driver's raucous admonition to his horses and the 
wind in the trees by the wayside. At different points the 
turns of the road brought to view the panorama of the 
town below and the calm sweep of the bay. 

"Exquisite, isn't it?" I said at last, with an indica- 
tive wave of the hand. 

"What's the good of anytinng being exquisite when 
you feel mouldy ? " 

" It may help to charm away the mouldiness. Beauty is 
eternal and mouldiness only temporal. The sun will go on 
shining and the sea will go on changing colour long after 
our pains and joys have vanished from the world. Nature 
is pitilessly indifferent to human emotion." 

"If so," she said, her intuition finding the weakness 
of my slipshod argument, "how can it touch human 
mouldiness?" 

" I don't know," said I. " The poets will tell you. All 
you have to do is to lie on the breast of the Great Mother 
and your heartache will go from you. I've never tried it 
myself, as I've never been aflSicted with heartache." 



SIMON THE JESTER 163 

''Is that true?" she asked, womanlike catching at the 
personal. 

I smiled and nodded. 

" Tm glad on your accoimt," she said sincerely. " It*s 
the very devil of an ache. I've always had it." 

" Poor Lola," said I, prompted by my acquired instinct 
of eumoiriety. " I wish I could cure you." 

"You?" She gave a short little laugh and then turned 
her head away. 

''I had a very comfortable crossing," she remarked a 
moment later. 

I gave her into the keeping of the manager of the hotel 
and did not see her again until she came down somewhat 
late for dinner. I met her in the vestibule. She wore a 
closely fitting brown dress, which in colour matched the 
bronze of her hair and in shape showed off her lithe and 
generous figure. 

I thought it my duty to cheer her by a well-deserved 
compliment. 

"Are you aware," I said, with a low bow, "that you're 
a remarkably handsome woman?" 

A perfectly unnecessary light came into her eyes and 
a superfluous flush to her cheeks. " If I'm at least that to 
you, I'm happy," she said. 

"You're that to the dullest vision. Follow the maUre 
ihdtel^^^ said I, as we entered the saUe d manger^ "and 
I'll walk behind in reflected glory." 

We made an effective entrance. I declare there was 
a perceptible rattle of soup-spoons laid down by the re- 
tired Colonels and maiden ladies as we passed by. Colonel 
Bunnion returned my nod of greeting in the most dis- 
tracted fashion and gazed at Lola with the frank admira- 
tion of British Cavalry. I felt foolishly proud and ex- 
hilarated, and gave her at my table the seat conunanding a 
view of the room. I then ordered a bottle of champagne, 
which I am forbidden to touch. 



i64 SIMON THE JESTER 

''It isn't often that I have the pleasure of dining with 
you," I said by way of apology. 

"This is the very first time," she said. 

" And it's not going to be the last," I declared. 

" I thought you were going to ship me back to Marseilles 
to-morrow." 

She laughed lazily, meeting my eyes. I smiled. 

"It would be inhuman. I allow you a few days' 
rest." 

Indeed, now she was here I had a curious desire to 
keep her. I regarded the failiure of my eiunoirous little 
{dans with more than satisfaction. I had done my best 
I had foimd (through the dwarfs agency) Captain Vau- 
venarde. I had satined myself that he was an outrageous 
person, thoroughly disqiudified from becoming Lola's 
husband, and there was an end of the matter. Meanwhile 
Fate (again through the agency of Anastasius) had brought 
her many himdreds of miles away from Dale and had more- 
over brought her to me. I was delighted. I patted Des- 
tiny on the back, and drank his health in excellent Pom- 
mery. Lola did not know in the least what I meant, but 
she smiled amiably and drank the toast. It was quite a 
merry dinner. Lola threw herself into my mood and 
jested as if she had never heard of an imdesirable husband 
who had been kicked out of the French Army. We talked 
of many things. I described in fuller detail my adventure 
with Anastasius and Saupiquet, and we laughed over the 
debt of fifteen sous and the elaborate receipt. 

"Anastasius," she said, "is childish in many ways — 
the doctors have a name for it." 

"Arrested development." 

"That's it; but he is absolutely cracked on one point 
— the poisoning of my horse Sultan. He has reams of 
paper which he calls the dossier of the crime. You never 
saw such a collection of rubbish in your life. I cried over 
it And he is so proud of it, poor wee mite." She laughed 



SIMON THE JESTER 165 

suddenly. "I should love to have seen you hobnobbing 
with him and Saupiquet." 

"Why?" I asked. 

"You're so aristocratic-looking," she did me the em- 
barrassing honour to explain in her direct fashion. 
"You're my idea of an English duke." 

"My dear Lola," I replied, "you're quite wrong. The 
ordinary English duke is a stout, middle-aged gentleman 
with a beard, and he generally wears thick knickerbockers 
and shocking bad hats." 

"Do you know any?" 

"Two or three," I admitted. 

" And duchesses, too ? " 

I again pleaded guilty. In these democratic days, if 
one is engaged in public and social affairs one can't help 
running up against them. It is their fault, not mine. 

" Do teU me about them," said Lola, with her elbows 
on the table. 

I told her. 

"And are earls and countesses just the same?" she 
asked with a disappointed air. 

"Just the same," I sighed, "only worse. They're so 
ordinary that you can't pick them out from common 
misters and missuses." 

Saying this I rose, for we had finished our dessert, and 
proposed coffee in the lounge. There we found Colonel 
Bunnion at so wilful a loose end that I could not find it 
in my heart to refuse him an introduction to Lola. He 
manifested his delight by lifting the skirt of his dinner- 
jacket with his h^ds and rising on his spurs like a 
bantam cock. I left her to him for a moment and went 
over to say a dvil word to the Misses Bostock of South 
Shields. I regret to say I noticed a certain frigidity in 
their demeanour. The well-conducted man in South 
Shields does not go out one night with a revolver tucked 
away in the pocket of his dress-suit, and turn up the 



1 66 SIMON THE JESTER 

next evening with a striking-looking lady with bronze 
hair. Such goings-on are seen on the stage in South 
Shields in melodrama, and they are the goings-on of the 
villain. In the eyes of the gentle ladies my reputation 
was gone. I was trying to rehabilitate myself when the 
chasseur brought me a telegram. I asked permission 
to open it, and stepped aside. 

The words of the telegram were like a ringing box 
on the ears. 

"Tell me immediately why Lola has joined you in 
Algiers. — ^Kynnersley." 

Not " Dale," mark you, as he has signed himself ever 
since I knew him in Eton collars, but " Kynnersley." 
Why has Lola joined you ? Why have you run oflf with 
Lola? What's the reason of this treacherous abduc- 
tion? Account for yoiurself inunediately. Stand antl 
deliver. I stood there gaping at the words like an idiot, 
my blood tingling at the implied accusation. The 
peremptoriness of it! lae impudence of the boy! The 
wild extravagance of the idea! And yet, while my 
head was reeling with one buffet a memory arose and 
gave me another on the other side. I remembered the 
preposterous attitude in which Dale had found us when 
he rushed from Berlin into Lola's drawing-room. 

I took the confounded telegram into a remote comer of 
the lounge, like a dog with a bone, and growled over 
it for a time until the humour of the situation turned the 
growl into a chuckle. Even had I been in sound health 
and strength, the idea of nmning off with Lola would have 
been absurd. But for me, in my present eumoirous dis- 
position of mind; for me, a half -disembodied spirit 
who had cast all vain and disturbing human emotions 
into the mud of Murglebed-on-Sea; for me who had a 
spirit's calm disregard for the petty passions and in- 
terests of mankind and walked through the world with 
no other object than healing a few human woes; for me 



SIMON THE JESTER 167 

who already saw death on the other side of the river and 
found serious occupation in exchanging airy badinage 
with him; for me with an abominable Uttle pain inside 
inexorably eating my life out and wasting me away 
literally and perceptibly like a shadow and twisting me 
up half a dozen times a day in excruciating agony; for 
me, in this delectable condition of soul and this deplo- 
rable condition of body, to think of nmning hundreds 
of miles from home away with — ^to say the least of it — so 
inconvenient a creature as a big, bronze-haiired woman, 
the idea was inexpressibly and weirdly comic. 

I stepped into the drawing-room close by and drew 
up a telegram to Dale. 

" Lady summoned by Pa}>adopoulos on private affairs. 
Avoid lunacy save for electioneering purposes. — ^Simon." 

Then I joined Lola and Colonel Bunnion. She was 
Ijong back in her laziest and most pantherine attitude, 
and she looked up at me as I approached with eyes full 
of velvet softness. For the life of me I could not help 
feeling glad that they were turned ;n me and not on 
Dale Kynnersley. 

Almost immediately the elder Miss Bostock came up 
to cldm the Colonel for bridge. He rose reluctantly. 

** I suppose it's no use asking you to make a fourth, Mr. 
de Gex ? " she asked, after the subacid manner of her kind. 

"Fm afraid not," I replied sweetly. Whereupon she 
rescued the Colonel from the syren and left me alone 
with her. I lit a cigarette and sat by her side. As she 
did not stir or speak, I asked whether she was tired. 

"Not very. Fm thinking. Do you know you've 
taught me an awful lot?" 

" I ? What can I have taught you ? " 

"The way people like yourself look at things. Fm 
treating Dale abominably. I didn't realise it before." 

Now why on earth did she bring Dale in just at that 
moment. 



i68 SIMON THE JESTER 

"Indeed?" said I. 

She nodded her head and said in her languorous 
voice: 

" He's over head and ears in love with me and thinks 
I care for him. I don't. I don't care a brass button for 
hinL I'm a bad influence in his life, and the sooner I take 
myself out of it the better. Don't you think so?" 

"You know my opinions," I said. 

"If I had followed your advice at first," she con- 
tinued, "we needn't have had all this commotion. And 
yet I'm not sorry." 

"What do you propose to do?" I asked. 

" Before deciding, I shall see my husband." 

" You shall do no such thing," said L 

Shesnuled. "I shall." 

I protested. Captain Vauvenarde had put himself 
outside the pale. He was not fit to associate with 
decent women. What object could she have in meet- 
ing him? 

"I want to judge for myself," she replied. 

" Judge what ? Surely not whether he is eligible as 
a husband!" 

"Yes," she said. 

"But, my dear Lola," I cried, "the notion is as crazy 
as any of Anastasius Papadopoulos's. Of course, as 
soon as he learns that you're a rich woman, he'll 
want to live with you, and use your money for his 
gaming-hell." 

" I am going to meet him," she said quietly. 

"I forbid it." 

"You're too late, dear friend. I wrote him a letter 
before dinner and sent it to the Cercle Africain by special 
messenger. I also wrote to Anastasius. I asked them 
both to see me to-morrow morning. That's why Fve 
been so gay this evening." 

At the sight of my blank face she laughed, and with 



SIMON THE JESTER 169 

one of her lithe movements rose from her chau:. I rose 
too. 

"Are you angry with me?" 

'^I thought I had walked out of a nightmare," I said. 
"I find rm still in it." 

" But don't be angry with me. It was the only way." 

"The only way to, or out of, what?" I asked, be- 
wildered. 

"Never mind." 

She looked at me with a singular expression in her 
slumbrous eyes. It was sad, wistful, soothing, and gave 
me the idea of a noble woman making a senseless 
sacrifice. 

"There is no earthly reason to do this on account of 
Dale," I protested. 

" Dale has nothing to do with it." 

"Then who has?" 

"Anastasius Papadopoulos," she said with undisguised 
irony. 

"I beg your pardon," I said rather stiffly, "for appear- 
ing to force your confidence. But as I first put the idea of 
joining your husband into your head and have enjoyed your 
confidence in the matter hitherto, I thought I might claim 
certain privileges." 

As she had done before, she laid her hands on mv 
shoulders — ^we were alone in the alcove — and looked me 
in the eyes. 

" Don't make me cr}'. Fm very near it. And I'm tired 
to-night, and I'm going to have a hellish time to-morrow. 
And I want you to do me a favour." 

"What is that?" 

" When Fm seeing my husband, I'd like to know that 
you were within call — ^in case I wanted you. One never 
knows what may happen. You will come, won't you, 
if I send for you?" 

"I'm always at your service," I said. 



1 



I/O 



SIMON THE JESTER 



She released my shoulders and grasped my band. 

"Good-night," she said, abruptly, and rushed swiftly 
out of the room, leaving me wondering more than I had 
ever wondered in my life at the inscrutable ways of 
womeik 









CHAPTER XIV 

I AM glad I devoted last night and the past hour this 
morning to bringing up to date this trivial record, for I 
have a premonition that the time is rapidly approaching 
when I shall no longer have the strength of mil or body 
to continue it. The little pain has increased in intensity 
and frequency the last few days, and though I try to 
delude myself into the belief that otherwise I am as 
strong as ever, I know in my heart that I am daily grow- 
ing weaker, daily losing vitality. I shall soon have to 
call in a doctor to give me some temporary relief, and 
doubtless he will put me to bed, feed me on slops, cut 
off alcohol, forbid noise and excitement, and keep me in 
a drugged, stupefied condition until I fall asleep, to 
wake up in the Garden of Proserpine. Death is noth- 
ing; it is the djriRg that is such a nuisance. It is going 
through so much for so little It is as bad as the 
campaign bef iiary election. It offends 

one's sense of proportiou. x a well-regulated universe 
there would be no tedious process of decay, either be- 
fore or after death. You would go about your daily 
avocation imconcemed and unwarned, and then at the 
moment appointed by an inscrutable Providence for 
your dissolution — ^phew! — and your clothes would re- 
main standing for a surprised second, and then fall 
down in a heap without a particle of you inside them. 
If we have to die, why doesn't Providence employ this 
simple and sensible method? It would save such a lot 
of trouble. It would be so clean, so pjdnless, so pictu- 
resque. It would add to the interest of our walks abroad. 
Fancy a stout, important policeman vanishing from 

171 



172 SIMON THE JESTER 

his uniform — ^the helmet falling over the collar, the 
tunic doubling in at the belt, the knees giving way, 
and the unheard, merry laughter of the disenuniform^ 
spirit winging its way truncheonless into the Emp3n'ean. 

But if you think you are going to get any fun out of 
dying in the present inconvenient manner, you are mis- 
taken. Believe one who is trying. 

I will remain on my feet, however, as long as my will 
holds out. In this way I may continue ;to be of service 
to my fellow creatures, and procure for myself a happy 
lot or portion. Even this morning I have been able to 
feel the throb of eumoiriety. A piteous letter came from 
Latimer, and a substantial cheque lies on my table 
ready to be posted. I wonder how much I have left? 
So long as it is enough to pay my doctor's bills and 
funeral expenses, what does it matter? 

The last line of the above was written on December 
2ist. It is now January 30th, and I am still alive and 
able to write. I wish I weren't. But I will set down as 
plainly as I can what has happened in the interval. 

I had just written the last word, seated at my hotel 
window in the sunshine, and enjoying, in spite of my un- 
cheerful thoughts, the scents that rose from the garden, 
when I heard a knock at my door. At my invitation 
to enter, Anastasius Papadopoulos trotted into the 
room in a great state of excitement carrying the familiar 
bimch of papers. He put his hat on the floor, pitched 
the papers into the hat, and ran up to me. 

"My dear sir, don't get up, I implore you. And I 
won't sit down. I have just seen the ever beautiful and 
beloved lady." 

I turned my chair away from the table, and faced him 
as he stood blowing kisses with one little hand, while the 
other lay on his heart. In a flash he struck a new ges- 
ture; he folded his arms and scowled. 



SIMON THE JESTER 173 

"I was with her. She was opening her inmost heart 
to me. She knows I am her champion. A servant 
came up annoimcing Monsieur Vauvenarde. She dis- 
missed me. I have come to my patron and friend, the 
English statesman. Her husband is with her now." 

I smiled. ''Madame Brandt told me that she had 
asked for an interview." 

"And you allow it? You allow her to contaminate 
her beautiful presence with the sight of that traitor, that 
cheat at cards, that murderer, that devil? Ah, but I 
will not have it! I am her chimpion. I will save her. 
I will save you. I will take you both away to Egypt, 
and surround you with my beautiful cats, and fan you 
with peacock's feathers." 

This was sheer crackedness of brain. For the first 
time I feared for the little man. When people begin to 
talk that way they are not allowed to go about loose. 
He went on talking and the three languages he used in 
his jargon got clotted to the point of unintelligibility. 
He spoke very fast and, as far as I could understand, 
poured abuse on the head of Captain Vauvenarde, and 
continued to declare himself Lola's champion and my 
devoted friend. He stamped up and down the room in 
his tightly buttoned frock-coat from the breastpocket 
of which peeped the fingers of his yellow dogskin gloves. 
At last he stopped, and drawing a chair near the window 
perched on it with a little hop like a child. He held 
out his hand. 

"Do you believe I am your friend?" 

" I am sure of it, my dear Professor." 

"Then I'll betray a sacred confidence. The cans- 
sima signara loves you. You didn't know it. But she 
loves you." 

I stared for a moment at the dwarf as if he had been 
a reasonable being. Something seemed to click inside 
my head, like a clogged cog-wheel that had suddenly 



174 SIMON THE JESTER . 

freed itself, and my mind went whirling away straight 
through the past few weeks. I tried to smile, and I said: 

" You are quite mistaken." 

"Oh, no," he replied, wagging his Napoleonic head. 
''Anastasius Papadopoulos is never mistaken. She 
told me so herself. She wept. She put her beautiful 
arms round my neck and sobbed on my shoulder." 

I found myself reproving him gently. "You should 
not have told me tlus, my dear Professor. Such con- 
fidences are locked up in the heart of un galani homme^ 
and are not revealed even to his dearest friend." 

But my voice sounded hollow in my own ears, and 
what he said for the next few minutes I do not remem- 
ber. The little man had told the truth to me, and 
Lola had told the truth to him. The realisation of it 
paralysed me. Why had I been such a fool as not to 
see it for myself? Memories of a hundred indications 
came tumbling one after another into my head — ^the 
forgotten glove, the glances, the changes of mood, the 
tears when she learned of my illness, the mysterious 
words, the abrupt little "You?" of yesterday. The 
woman was in love, deeply in love, in love with all the 
fervour of her big nature. And I had stood by and 
wondered what she meant by this and by that — ^things 
that would have been obvious to a coalheaver. I 
thought of Dale and I felt miserably guilty, horribly 
ashamed. How could I expect him to believe me when 
I told him that I had not wittingly stolen her affections 
from him. And her aflfections? Bon Dieul What 
on earth could I do with them? What is the use of a 
woman's love to a dead man? And did I want it even 
for the tiny remainder of life? 

Anastasius, perceiving that I paid but scant atten- 
tion to his conversation, wriggled oflF his chair and stood 
before me with folded arms. 

"You adore each other with a great passion," he said. 



SIMON THE JESTER 175 

''She is my Madonna, and you are my friend and bene- 
factor. I will be your protection and defence. I will 
never let her go away with that infamous, gambling 
and murdering scoundrel. My gigantic combinations 
have matured. I bless your union." 

He lifted his little arms in benediction. The situation 
was cruelly comical. For a moment I hated the mourn- 
ful-visaged, posturing monkey, and had a wild desire to 
throw him out of the window and have done with him. 
I rose and, towering over him, was about to lecture him 
severely on his impertinent interference, when the sight 
of his scared face made me turn away with a laugh. 
What would be the use of reproaching him? He would 
only sit down on the floor and weep. So I paced the 
room, while he followed me with his eyes like an un- 
certain spaniel. 

"Look here. Professor," said I at last. "Now that 
youVe found Captain Vauvenarde, brought Madame 
Brandt and him together, and told me that she is in love 
with me, don't you think you've done enough? Don't 
you think your cats need your attention? Something 
terrible may be happening to them. I dreamed last 
night," I added with desperate mendacity, "that they 
were turned into woolly lambs." 

"Monsieur," said the dwarf loftily, "my duty is 
here. Py suis^ fy reslel And I care not whether my 
cats are turned into the angels of Paradise." 

I groaned. "You are wasting a great deal of money 
over this affair," I urged. 

"What is money to my gigantic combinations?" 

"Tell me," I cried with considerable impatience. 
"What are your confounded combinations?" 

He began to tremble violently. "I would rather 
die," said he, " than betray my secret." 

" It's all some silly nonsense about that wretched horse ! " 
I exclaimed. 



176 SIMON THE JESTER 

He covered his ears with his hands. "Blasphemy! 
Blasphemy! Don't utter it!" 

In another moment he was cowering on his knees 
before me. 

"You, of all men, mustn't blaspheme. You whom I 
love like my master. You whom the divine lady loves. 
I can't bear it !" He continued to gibber imintelligibly. 

He was stark mad. There was no question of it. 
For a moment I stood irresolute. Then I lifted him to 
his feet and patted his head soothingly. 

"Never mind," said I. "I was wrong. It was a 
beautiful horse. There never was such a horse in the 
world. If I had a picture of him I would hang it up on 
the wall over my bed." 

"Would you?" he cried joyfully. "Then I will give 
you one." 

He trotted over to the bundle of papers that reposed 
in his hat on the floor, searched through them, and to 
my dismay handed me a faded, immounted, and rather 
torn and crumpled photograph of the wonderful horse. 

"There!" said he. 

"I could not rob you of it," I protested. 

"It will be my joy to know that you have it — that 
it is hanging over your bed. See — ^have you a pin? 
I myself will fix it for you." 

While he was searching my table for pins the chasseur 
of the hotel came with a message from Madame Brandt. 
Would Monsieur come at once to Madame in her private 
room? 

"I'll come now," I said. "Professor, you must ex- 
cuse me.'* 

"Don't mention it," he replied. "I shall occupy 
myself in hanging the picture in the most artistic way 
possible." 

So I left him, his mind apparently concentrated on the 
childish task of pinning the photograph of the ridiculous 



SIMON THE JESTER 177 

horse on my bedroom wall, and went with the most 
complicated feelings downstairs and through the cor- 
ridors to Lola's apartments. 

She rose to meet me as I entered. 

'"It's very kind of you to come," she said in her fluent 
but Britannic French. "May I present my husband. 
Monsieur Vauvenarde." 

Monsieur Vauvenarde and I exchanged bows. I 
noticed at once that he wore the Frenchman's costume 
when he pays a visile de drimonie^ frock-coat and gloves, 
and that a silk hat lay on the table. I was glad that 
he paid her this mark of respect. 

"I have had the pleasure of meeting you before, 
Monsieur," said he, "in circumstances somewhat 
different." 

"I remember perfectly," said I. 

"And your charming but inexperienced little friend 
— ^is he well?" 

"He is at present decorating my room with photo- 
graphs of Madame' s late horse. Sultan," said I. 

He was startled, and gave me a quick, sharp look. 
I did not notice it at the time, but I remembered it later. 
Then he broke into an indulgent laugh. 

"The poor animal! " He turned to Lola. "How 
jealous I used to be of him! And how quickly the time 
flies. But give yourself the trouble of seating yourself. 
Monsieur." 

He motioned me to a chair and sat down. He was a 
man of polished manners and had a pleasant voice. I 
guessed that in the days when he paid court to Lola, he 
had been handsome in his dark Norman way, and . 
possessed considerable fascination. Evil living and , 
sordid passions had coarsened his features, produced ' 
bagginess imder the eyes and a shiftiness of glance. 
Idleness and an inverted habit of life were responsible 
for the nascent paimch and the rolls of fat at the back 
12 



( 



178 SIMON THE JESTER 

of his neck. He suggested the revivified corpse of a 
fine gentleman that had been unnaturally swollen. I 
had disliked him at the Cercle Africain; now I detested 
him heartily. The idea of Lola entering the vitiated 
atmosphere of his life was inexpressibly repugnant to me. 

Contrary to her habit, Lola sat bolt upright on the 
stamped-velvet covered sofa which formed part of the 
stiff French suite, the palms of her hands pressing the 
seat on either side of her. She caught the shade of 
disgust that swept over my face, and gave me a quick 
glance that pleaded for toleration. Her eyes, though 
bright, were sunken, like those of a woman who has not 
slept. 

"Monsieur," said Vauvenarde, "my wife informs me 
that to your disinterested friendship is due this most 
charming reconciliation." 

" Reconciliation ? " I echoed. " It was quickly effected." 

**Mon DieUy^ he said. "I have always longed for 
the comforts of a home. My wife has grown tired of 
a migratory existence. She comes to find me. I hasten 
to meet her. There is nothing to keep us apart. The 
reconciliation was a matter of a few seconds. I wish 
to express my gratitude to you, and, therefore, I ask 
you to accept my most cordial thanks." 

"It has always been a pleasure to me," said I very 
frigidly, "to place my services at the disposal of Madame 
Brandt." 

"Vauvenarde, Monsieur," he corrected with a smile. 

"And is Madame Vauvenarde equally satisfied with 
the — reconciliation?" I asked. 

"I think Monsieur Vauvenarde is somewhat prema- 
ture," said Lola, with a trembling lip. "There were 
conditions ^" 

"A mere question of protocol." He waved an airy 
hand. 

"I don't know what that is," said Lola. "There are 



SIMON THE JESTER 179 

conditions I must fix, and I thought the advice of my 
friend, Monsieur de Gex ^' 

"Precisely, my dear Lola," he interrupted, "The 
principle is affirmed. We are reconciled. I proceed 
logically. The first thing I do is to thank Monsieur de 
Gex — ^you have a French name. Monsieur, and you pro- 
nounce it English fashion, which is somewhat embarrass- 
ing But no matter. The next thing is the pro- 
tocol. We have no possibility of calling a family coim- 
dl, and therefore, I acceded with pleasure to the inter- 
vention of Monsieur. It is kind of him to burden himself 
with our unimportant affairs." 

The irony of his tone belied the suave correctitude of 
his words. I detested him more and more. More and 
more did I realise that the dying eumoirist is capable of 
petty human passions. My vanity was being scarified. 
Here was a joman passionately in love with me pro- 
posing to throw herself into another man's arms— it 
made not a scrap of difference, in the circumstances, 
that the man was her husband — and into the arms of 
such a man! Having known me to decline — etcetera, 
etcetera! How could she face it? And why was she 
doing it? To save herself from me, or me from her- 
self? She knew perfectly well that the little pain in- 
side would precious soon settle that question. Why 
was she doing it? I should have thought that the first 
glance at the puffy reprobate would have been enough 
to show her the folly of her idea. However, it was com- 
forting to learn that she had not surrendered at once. 

"If I am to have the privilege. Monsieur," said I, "of 
acting as a family council, perhaps you may forgive my 
hinting at some of the conditions that doubtiess are in 
Madame's mind." 

" Proceed, Monsieur," said he. 

"I want to know where I am," said Lola in English. 
"He took everything for granted from the first." 



i8o SIMON THE JESTER 

"Are you willing to go back to him?" I asked also in 
English. 

She met my gaze steadily, and I saw a woman's need- 
less pain at the back of her eyes. She moistened her lips 
with her tongue, and said: 

" Under conditions." 

" Monsieur," said I in French, turning to Vauvenar e, 
" forgive us for speaking oiu* language." 

"Perfectly," said he, and he smiled meaningly and 
banteringly at us both. 

"In the first place, Monsieur, you are aware that 
Madame has a little fortime, which does not detract 
from the charm you have alwa}rs found in her. It was 
left her by her father, who, as you know, tamed lions 
and directed a menagerie. I would propose that Madame 
appointed trustees to administer this little fortime." 

"There is no necessity, Monsieur," he said. "By the 
law of France it is hers to do what she likes with." 

"Precisely," I rejoined. "Trustees would prevent 
her from doing what she liked with it. Madame has 
indeed a head for affairs, but she also has a woman's 
heart, which sometimes interferes with a woman's head 
in the most disastrous manner." 

"Article No. i of the protocol. AUez toujourSy Mon- 



sieur." 



I went on, feeling happier. "The next article treats 
of a little matter which I imderstand has been the cause 
of differences in the past between Madame and yourself. 
Madame, although she has not entered the arena for 
some time, has not finally abandoned it." I smiled al 
the look of surprise on Lola's face. "An artist is always 
an artist. Monsieur. She is willing, however, to re- 
nounce it for ever, if you, on your side, will make quite 
a small sacrifice." 

"Name it, Monsieur." 

" You have a little passion for baccarat ^ 



SIMON THE JESTER i8i 

"Surely, Monsieur," said he blandly, "my wife would 
not expect me to give up what is the mere recreation 
of every clubman." 

"As a recreation pure and simple — she would not 

insist too much, but ^" I shrugged my shoulders. 

I flatter m)rself on being able to do it with perfect French 
expressiveness. I caught, to my satisfaction, an angry 
gleam in his eye. 

" Do you mean to say. Monsieur, that I play for more 
than recreation?" 

"How dare I say anything. Monsieur. But Madame 
is prejudiced against the Cercle Africain. For a bach- 
elor there is little to be said against it — ^but fot a married 
man — ^you seize the point ?" said I. 

^^Bien^ Monsieur," he said, swallowing his wrath. 
"And Articles?" 

" Since you have left the army — ^would it not be better 
to engage in some profession — unless your private for- 
tune dispenses you from the necessity." 

He said nothing but : " Article 4 ? " 

" It would give Madame comfort to live out of Algiers." 

*^Mai aussi^^ he replied rather unexpectedly. "We 
have the whole of France to choose from." 

"Would not Madame be happier if she lived out of 
France, also? She has always longed for a social po- 
sition." 

"£fc hien? I can give her one in France." 

"Are you quite sure?" I asked, looking him in the 
eyes. 

"Monsieur," said he, rising and giving his moustache 
a swashbuckler twist upward, "what are you daring to 
insinuate?" 

I leaned back in my chair and fingered the waxed 
ends of mine. 

"Nothing, Monsieur; I ask a simple question, which 
you surely can have no difficulty in answering." 



1 82 SIMON THE JESTER 

''Your questions are the height of indiscretion/' he 
cried angrily. 

"In that case, before we carry this interview .further, 
the Family Council and Madame would do well to have 
a private consultation." 

"Monsieur," he cried, completely losing his temper, 
"I forbid you to use that tone to me. You are making 
a mock of me. You are insulting me. I bore with 
you long enough to see how much fiuther your inso- 
lence 'vould dare to go. I'm not to have a hand in 
the administration of my wife's money? I'm to forsake 
a plentiful means of livelihood ? I'm to become a conmser- 
cial traveller? I'm to expatriate myself? Fm to ex- 
plain, too, the reasons why I left the army? I would 
not condescend. Least of all to you." 

"May I ask why. Monsieur?" 

" Tonnerre de Dieu I " He stamped his foot. " Do you 
take me for a fool? Here I am — ^I came at my wife's 
request, ready to take her back as my wife, ready to con- 
done everything — yes, Monsieur, as a man of the world 
— you think I have no eyes, no understanding — ready to 
lake her ofE your hands-- — " 

I leaped to my feet. 

"Monsieur!" I thundered. 

Lola gave a cry and rushed forward. I pushed her 
aside, and glared at him. I was in a furious rage. We 
glared at each other e)^e to eye. I pointed to the door. 

"Monsieur^ sortezP^ 

I went to it and flimg it wide. Anastasius Papado- 
poulos trotted into the room. 

His entrance was so queer, so unexpected, so anti- 
climactic, that for the moment the three of us were thrown 
off our emotional balance. 

"I have heard all, I have heard all," shrieked the 
Kttle man. "I know you for what you are. I am the 
champion of the carissima sigtiora and the protector of 



SIMON THE JESTER i8j 

the English statesman. You are a traitor and mur- 
derer ^" 

Vauvenarde lifted his hand in a threatening gesture. 

"Hold your tongue, you little abortion!" he shouted. 

But Anastasius went on screaming and flourishing his 
bundle of papers. 

"Ask him if he remembers the horse Sultan; ask 
him if he remembers the horse Sultan!" 

Lola took him by the shoulders. 

"Anastasius, you must go away from here — to please 
me. It's my orders." 

But he shook himself free, and the silk hat which he 
had not removed fell off in the quick struggle. 

"Ask him if he remembers Saupiquet," he screamed, 
and then banged the door. 

A malevolent devil put a sudden idea into my head 
and prompted speech. 

^^Do you remember Saupiquet?" I asked ironically. 

"Monsieur, meddle with your own affairs and let me 
pass. You shall hear from me." 

The dwarf planted himself before the door. 

"You shall not pass till you have answered me. Do 
you remember Saupiquet? Do you remember the five 
francs you gave to Saupiquet to let you into Sultan's 
stable? Ah! Ha! Ha! You wince. You grow pale. 
Do you remember the ball of poison you put down 
Sultan's throat?" 

Lola started forward with flaming eyes and anguished 
face. 

"You — ^you?" she gasped. "You were so ignoble as 
to do that?" 

"The accursed brute!" shouted Vauvenarde. "Yes, 
I did it. I wish I had burned out his entrails." 

Anastasius sprang at him like a tiger cat. I had a 
quick vision of the dwarf clinging in the air against the 
other's bulky form, one hand at his throat, and then of 



184 



SIMON THE JESTER 



an incredibly swift flash of steel. The dwarf dropped 
off and rolled backwards^ revealing something black 
sticking out of Vauvenarde's frock-coat — ^for the second 
I could not realise what it was. Then Vauvenarde, 
with a ghastly face, reeled sideways and collapsed in 
a heap on the ground. 



CHAPTER XV 

Of what happened unmediately afterwards I have but 
a confused memory. I remember that Lola and I both 
fell on our knees beside the stabbed man^ and I re- 
member his horrible staring eyes and open mouth. I 
remember that, though she was white and shaky, she 
neither shrieked, went into hysterics, nor fainted. I 
remember rushing down to the manager; I remember 
running with him breathlessly through obscure passages 
of the hotel in search of a doctor who was attending a 
sick member of the staff. I remember the rush back, 
the doctor bending over the body, which Lola had 
partially imclothed, and saying: 

"He is dead. The blade has gone straight through 
his heart." 

And I have in my mind the imforgettable and awful 
picture of Anastasius Papadopoulos disregarded in a 
comer of the room, with his absurd silk hat on — some 
reflex impulse had caused him to pick it up and put it 
on his head — sitting on the floor amid a welter of docu- 
ments relating to the death of the horse Sultan, one of 
which he was eagerly perusing. 

After this my memory is dear. It was only the first 
awful shock and horror of the thing that dazed me. 

The man was dead, said the doctor. He must lie 
until the police arrived and drew up the prods-verbal. 
The manager went to telephone to the police, and while 
he was gone I told the doctor briefly what had occurred. 
Anastasius took no notice of us. Lola, holding her 
nerves under iron control, stood bolt upright looking alter- 
nately at the doctor and myself as we spoke. But she 
did not utter a word. Presently the manager returned. 

185 



i86 SIMON THE JESTER 

The alarm had not been given in the hotel. No one knew 
anything about the occurrence. Lola went into her bed- 
room and came back with a sheet. The manager took it 
from her and threw it over the dead man. The doctor 
stood by Anastasius. The end of a strip of sunlight by 
the window just caught the dwarf in his comer. 

" Get up," said the doctor. 

Anastasius, without raising his eyes from his papers, 
waved liim away. 

'^I am busy. I am engaged on important papers of 
identification. He had a white star on his forehead, and 
his tail was over a metre long." 

Lola approached him, 

^'Anastasius," she said gently. He looked up with 
a radiant smile. ''Put away those papers." Like a 
child he obeyed and scrambled to his feet. Then, 
seeing the unfamiliar face of the doctor for the first 
time, he executed one of his poUtest and most elaborate 
bows. The doctor after looking at him intently for a 
while, turned to me. 

"Mad. Utterly mad. Apparently he has no con- 
sciousness of what he has done." 

He lured him to the sofa and sat beside him and 
began to talk in a low tone of the contents of the papers. 
Anastasius replied cheerfully, proud at being noticed 
by the stranger. The papers referred to a precious 
secret, a gigantic combination, which he had spent 
years in maturing. I shivered at the sound of his voice, 
and turned to Lola. 

"This is no place for you. Go into your bedroom 
till you are wanted." 

I held the door open for her. She put her hands up 
to her face and reeled, and I thought she would have 
fallen; but she roused herself. 

"I don't want to break down — ^not yet. I shall if 
Tm left alone — come and sit with me, for God*s sake." 



SIMON THE JESTER 187 

"Very weU," said L 

She passed me and I followed : but at the door I 
turned and glanced round the cheerful, sunny room. 
There, against the background of blue sky and tree tops 
framed by the window, sat Aiiastasius Papadopoulos, 
swinging his little legs and talking bombastically to the 
tanned and grizzled doctor, and opposite stood the 
correctly attir^ hotel manager in the attitude in which 
he habitually surveyed the lay-out of the table d^hdte^ 
keeping watch beside the white-covered shape on the 
floor. I was glad to shut the sight from my eyes. 
We waited silently in the bedroom, Lola sitting on the 
bed and hiding her face in the pillows, and I standing 
by the window and looking out at the smiling mockery 
of the fair earth. An agonising spasm of pain — a 
memento mart — shot through me and passed away. I 
thanked God that a few weeks would see the end of me. 
I had always enjoyed the comedy of life. It had been 
to me a thing of infinite jest. But this stupid, meaning- 
less tragedy was carrying the joke too far. My fastidi- 
ousness revolted at its vulgarity. I no longer wished 
to inhabit a world where such jests were possible. . . . 
I had never seen a man die before. I was surprised at 
the swiftness and the ugliness of it. ... I suddenly 
realised that I was smoking a cigarette, which I was 
quite unconscious of having lit. I threw it away. A 
minute afterwards I felt that if I did not smoke I should 
go crazy. So I lit another. . . . The ghastly silliness 
of the murder! .... Colonel Bunnion's loud laugh 
rose from the terrace below, jarring horribly on my ears. 
A long green praying mantis that had apparently mounted 
on the bourgainvillea against the hotel wall appeared in 
meditative stateliness on the window-sill. I picked the 
insect up absent-mindedly, and began to play with it. 
Lola's voice from the bed startled me and caused me to 
drop the mantis. She spoke hoarsely. 



! 



i88 SIMON THE JESTER 



"Tell me — ^what are they going to do with him?** 

I turned round. She had raised a crushed face from 
the pillows, and looked at me haggardly. I noticed a 
carafe of brandy and a siphon by the bedside. I mixed 
her a strong dose, and, before replying, made her drink it. 

"The/11 place him under restraint, that's all. He's 
not responsible for his actions." 

"He did that once before — ^I told you — ^but without 
the knife — ^I wish I could cry — I can't — ^You don't 
think it heartless of me — ^but my brain is on fire — ^I shall 
always see it — ^I wish to God I had never asked him to 
come — ^Why did I? My God, why did I? — ^It was my 
fault — ^I wanted to see him — ^to judge for myself how 
much of the old Andr^ was left — there was good in him 
once — I thought I might possibly help him — ^There was 
nothing for me to do in the world — Without you any 
kind of old hell was good enough — That's why I sent 
for him — ^When he came, after a bit, I was afraid, and 
sent for you ^" 

" Afraid of what ?" I asked. 

"He asked me at once what money I had — ^Then 
there seemed to be no doubt in his mind that I would 
join him — ^We spoke of you — ^the friend who could ad- 
vise me — ^He never said — ^what he said afterwards — ^I 
thought it kind of him to consent to see you — I rang the 
bell and sent the chasseur for you. I supposed Anasta- 
sius had gone home — ^I never thought of him. The poor 
little man was sweet to me, just like a dog — a silent, sym- 
pathetic dog — ^I spoke to tdm as I would to something 
that wouldn't understand — ^aU sorts of foolish things — 
Now and then a woman has to empty her heart" — she 
shivered — her hands before her face- — 

" It's my fault, it's my fault." 

"These things are no one's fault," I said gently. 
But just as I was beginning to console her with what 
thumb-marked scraps of platitude I could collect — the 



SIMON THE JESTER 189 

only philosophy after all, such is the futility of systems, 
adequate to the deep issues of life — ^the door opened and 
the manager announced that the police had arrived. 

We went through the ordeal of the prods-verbal. 
AnastasiuSy confronted with his victim, had no memory 
of what had occurred. He shrieked and shrank and hid 
his face in Lola's dress. When he was forced to speak 
he declared that the dead man was not Captain Vau- 
venarde. Captain Vauvenarde was at the Cercle Af- 
ricain. He, himself, was seeking him. He would 
take the gendarmes there, and they could arrest the 
Captain for the murder of Sultan of which his papers 
contained indubitable proofs. Eventually the poor little 
wretch was led away in custody, proud and smiling, 
entirely convinced that he was leading his captors to the 
arrest of Captain Vauvenarde. On the threshold he 
turned and bowed to us so low that the brim of his silk 
hat touched the floor. Then Lola's nerve gave way 
and she broke into a passion of awful weeping. 

The commissaire de police secured the long thin knife 
(how the dwarf had managed to conceal it on his small 
person was a m)rstery) and the bundle of docimients, and 
accompanied me to my room to see whether he had left 
anything there to serve as a piice de conviction. We 
foimd only the cnmipled picture of the horse Sultan 
neatly pinned against my bedroom wall, and on the 
floor a ribbon tied like a garter with a little bell opposite 
the bow. On it was written "Santa Bianca," and I 
knew it was the collar of the beloved cat which he must 
have been carrying about him for a talisman. The 
commissaire took this also. 

If you desire to know the details of the judicial pro- 
ceedings connected with the murder of Andr€ Marie- 
Joseph Vauvenarde, ex-Captain in the Chasseurs d' Afrique, 
and the trial of Anastasius Papadopoulos, I must refer 



I90 SIMON THE JESTER 

you to the Algerian, Parisian, and London Press. There 
you will find an eagerly picturesque account of the 
whole miserable affair. Now, not only am I imable 
to compete with descriptive verbatim reporters on their 
own ground, but also a consecutive statement, either 
bald or graphic, of the tedious horrors Lola Brandt 
and I had to undergo, would be foreign to the purpose 
of these notes, however far from their original pur- 
pose an ironical destiny has caused them to wander. 
You know nearly all that is necessary for you to know, 
so that when I am dead you may not judge me too 
harshly. The remainder I can sununarise in a few 
words. At any rate, I have told the truth, often more 
naively than one would have thought possible for a 
man who prided himself as much as I did on his 
epicurean sophistication. 

These have been days, as I say, of tedious horror. 
There have been endless examinations, reconstructions 
of the crime, exposures in daring publicity of the private 
lives of the protagonists of the lunatic drama. The 
French judges and advocates have accepted the account 
given by Lola and myself of our mutual relations with a 
certain mocking credulity. The Press hasn't accepted 
it at all. It took as a matter of course the view held 
by the none too noble victim. At first, seeing Lola 
shrug her shoulders with supreme indifference as to her 
own reputation, I cared but little for these insinuations. 
I wrote such letters to my sisters and to Dale as I felt 
sure would be believed, and let the long-eared, gaping 
world go hang. Besides, I had other things to thmk of. 
Physical pain is insistent, and I have suffered damnable 
torture. The pettiness of the legal inquiry has been 
also a maddening irritation. Nothing has been too 
minute for the attention of the French judiciary. It 
seemed as though the whole of the evil gang of the 
Cercle Africain were called as witnesses. They testified 



f 
_/ 



SIMON THE JESTER 191 

as to Captain Vauvenarde's part proprietorship of the 
hell — as to wrong practices that occurred there — as to 
the crazy conduct of both Anastasius and myself on the 
occasion of my insane visit. Officers of the Chas- 
seurs d'Afrique were compelled further to blacken the 
character of the dead man — he had been a notorious 
plucker of pigeons during most of his military career, 
and when at last he was caught red-handed palming 
the king at icarti^ he was forced to resign his commission. 
Arabs came from the slums with appalling stories. 
Even the stolid Saupiquet, dragged from Toulon, gave 
evidence as to the five-franc bribe and the debt of fifteen 
sous, and identified the horse Sultan by the cnmipled 
photograph. Lola and I have been racked day after 
day with questions — some, indeed, prompted by the 
suspicion that Vauvenarde might have met his death 
directly by our hand instead of that of Anastasius/ It 
was the Procureur-g^n^ral who said: "It can be argued 
that you would benefit by the decease of the defunct.'* 
I replied that we could not benefit in any way. My sole 
object was to effect a reconciliation between husband 
and wife. "Will you explain why you gave yourself 
that trouble?" I never have smiled so grimly as I did 
then. How could I explain my precious pursuit of the 
eiunoirous to a French Procureur-g^ndral ? How could 
I put before him the point of view of a semi-disembodied 
spirit? I replied with lame lack of originality that my 
actions proceeded from disinterested friendship. "You 
are a pure altruist then?" said he. "Very pure," 
said I. . . . It was only the facts of the scabbard ^f 
the knife having been found attached to the dwarfs 
person beneath his clothes, and of certain rambling 
menaces occiuring in his Sultan papers that saved us 
from the indignity of being arrested and put into the 

dock 

During all this time I remained at the hotel at Mus- 



192 SIMON THE JESTER 

tapha Sup^rieur. Lola moved to a suite of rooms 
in another hotel a little way down the hill. I saw her 
daily. At first she shrank from pubUdty and refused 
to go out, save in a closed carriage to the town when 
her presence was necessary at the inquiries. But after 
a time I persuaded her to brave the stare of the curious 
and stroll with me among the eucalyptus woods above. 
We cut ourselves off from other hiunan companionship 
and felt like two lost souls wandering alone through 
mist. She conducted herself with grave and simple 
dignity. . . . Once or twice she visited Anastasius in 
prison. She found him humanely treated and not des- 
pondent. He thought they had arrested him for the 
poisoning of the horse, and laughed at their foolishness. 
As they refused to retiun him his dossier, he occupied 
himself in reconstructing it, and wrote pages and pages of 
incoherence to prove the guilt of Captain Vauvenarde. 
He was hopelessly mad. . . . The bond of pain bound 
me very close to Lola. 

"What are you going to do with your life?" I asked 
her one day. 

" So long as I have you as a friend, it doesn't greatly 
matter." 

"You forget," I said, "that you can't have me much 
longer." 

"Are you going to leave me? It's not because I 
have dragged you through all this dirt and horror. An- 
other woman might say that of another man — ^but not 
I of you. Why are you going to leave me? I want 
so little— only to see you now and then— to keep the 
heart in me." 

"Can't you realise/' I answered, "that what I said 
in London is true?" 

"No," she said, "I can't. Ifs unbelievable. You 
can't believe it yourself. If you did, how could you go 
on behaving like anybody else — like me for instance?" 



SIMON THE JESTER 193 

"What would you do if you were condemned to die?" 

She shuddered. "I should go mad with fear — I " 

She broke off and remained for some moments reflective, 
with knitted brow. Then she lifted her head proudly. 
"No, I shouldn't. I should face it like you. Only 
cowaids are afraid. It's best to show things that you 
don't care a hang for theuL" 

" Keep that sublime je nCen ficKisme up when I'm 
dead and buried," said I, "and you'll pull through 
your life all right. The only thing you must avoid is 
the pursuit of eiunoiriety." 

"What on earth is that ?" she asked. 

"The last devastating vanity," said I. 

And so it is. 

"When you are gone," she said bravely, "I shall 
remember how strong and true you were. It will make 
me strong too." 

I acquiesced silently in her proposition. In this age 
of flippancy and scepticism, if a himian soul proclaims 
sincerely its faith in the divinity of a rabbit, in God's 
name don't disturb it. It is something whereto to refer 
his aspirations, his resolves; it is a court of arbitration, 
at the lowest, for his spiritual disputes; and the rabbit 
will be as effective an oracle as any other. For are not 
all religions but the strivings of the spirit towards crys- 
tallisation at some point outside the environment of 
passions and appetites which is the flesh, so that it 
can work untranunelled: and are not all gods but the 
accidental forms, conditioned by circumstance, which 
this crystallisation takes? All gods in their anthropo-, 
helio-, thero-, or what-not-morphic forms are fdse; 
but, on the other hand, all gods in their spiritual essence 
are true. So I do not deprecate my prospective unique 
portion in Lola Brandt's hagiology. It was better for 
her soul that I should occupy it. Even if I were about 
to live my normal life out, like any other hearty human, 

»3 



194 SIMON THE JESTER 

nuury and beget children, I doubt whether I should 
attempt to shake my wife's faith in my heroical qualities. 

This was but a fragment of one among coimtless 
talks. Some were lighter in tone, others darker, the 
mood of man being much like a child's balloon which 
rises or falls as the strata of air are more rarefied or more 
dense. Perhaps, during the time of strain, the atmo- 
sphere was more often rarefied, and our conversation 
had the day's depressing incidents for its topics. We 
rarely spoke of the dead man. He was scarcely a sub- 
ject for panegyric, and it was useless to dwell on the 
memory of his degradation. I think we only once 
talked of him deeply and at any length, and that was 
on the day of the funeral. His brother, a manufacturer 
at Clermont-Ferrand, and a widowed aunt, apparently 
his only two siuriving relatives, arrived in Algiers just 
in time to attend the ceremony. They had seen the 
report of the miurder in the newspapers and had started 
forthwith. The brother, during an interview with Lola, 
said bitter things to her, reproaching her with the man's 
downfall, and cast on her the responsibility of his death. 

''He spoke," she said, ''as if I had suggested the 
murder and practically put the knife into the poor crazy 
little fellow's hand." 

The Vauvenardes must have been an amiable family. 

" Before I came," she said a little while later, " I still had 
some tenderness for him — a woman has for the only 
man that has been — ^really — ^tn her life. I wish I could 
feel it now. I wish I could feel some respect even. 
But I can't. If I could, it would lessen the horror that 
has got hold of me to my bones." 

It was a torture to her generous soul that she could 
not grieve for him. She could only shudder at the 
tragedy. In her heart she grieved more for Anastasius 
Papadopoulos, and in so doing she was, in her feminine 
way, self-accusative of callous lack of human feeling. 



SIMON THE JESTER 195 

It was my attempt to bring her to a more rational state 
of mind that cdEused us to review the dead man's career, 
and recapitulate the impleasing incidents of the last 
interview. 

Of Captain Vauvenarde, no more. He has gone 
whither I am going. That his soul may rest in peace is 
my earnest prayer. But I do not wish to meet tum. 

Lola went tearless and strong through the horrible 
ordeal of the judicial proceedings. She said I gave her 
courage. Perhaps, imconsciously, I did. It was only 
when the end came that she broke down, although she 
knew exactly what the end would be. And I, too, felt 
a lump in my throat when they sentenced Anastasius 
Papadopoulos to the asyliun, and I saw him for the last 
time, the living parody of Napoleon III., frock-coated 
and yellow-gloved, the precious, newly written dossier 
in his hand, as he disappeared with a mournful smile 
bora the court, after bowing low to the judge and to us, 
without having understood the significance of anything 
that had happened. 

In the carriage that took us home she wept and sobbed 
bitterly. 

"I loved him so. He was the only creature on earth 
that loved me. He loved me as only a dog can love — or 
an angel." 

I let her cry. What could I say or do ? 

These have been weeks of tedious horror and pain. 
With the exception of Colonel Bunnion, I have kept 
myself aloof from my fellow creatures in the hotel, even 
taking my meals in my own rooms, not wishing to be 
stared at as the hero of the scandal that convulsed the 
place. And with regard to Colonel Bunnion shall I be 
accused of cynicism if I say that I admitted him — ^not 
to my confidence — ^but to my company, because I know 
that it delighted the honest but boring fellow to prove to 



196 SIMON THE JESTER 

himself that he could rise above British prejudice and 
exhibit tact in dealing with a man in a delicate position? 
For, mark you, all the world — even those nearest and 
dearest to me as I soon discovered — ^believed that the 
wife of the man who was murdered before my eyes was 
my mistress. Colonel Bimnion was kind, and he meant 
to be kind. He was a gentleman for all his wearisome- 
nessy and his kindness was such as I could accept. But 
I know that what I say about him is true. Ye gods! 
Haven't I felt myself the same swelling pride in my 
broadmindedness ? When a man is going on my jour- 
ney he does not palter with truth. 

Though I held myself aloof, as I say, from practically 
all my fellow creatures here, I have not been cut off 
from the outside world. My sisters, like this French 
court in Algiers, have accepted my statement with 
polite incredulity. Their letters have been full of love, 
half-veiled reproach, anxiety as to their social position, 
and an insane desire to come and take care of me. This 
I have forbidden them to do. The pain they would 
have inflicted on themselves, dear souls, would have far 
outweighed the comfort I might have gained from their 
ministrations. Then I have had piteous letters from Dale. 

''. . . Your telegram reassured me, though I was 
puzzled. Now I get a letter from Lola, telling me it's all 
oflF — that she never loved me — that she valued my 
youth and my friendship, but that it is best for us not 
to meet again. What is the meaning of it, Simon? 
For Heaven's sake tell me. I can't think of anything 
else. I can't sleep. I am going off my head. . . ." 

Again. ^\ . . This awful newspaper report and 
your letter of explanation — ^I have them side by side. 
Forgive me, Simon. I don't know what to believe, 
where to turn. ... I have looked up to you as the 
best and straightest man I know. You must be. Yet 
why have you done this? Why didn't you tell me she 



SIMON THE JESTER 197 

was married? Why didn't she tell me? I can't write 
properly, my head is all on a buzz. The beastly papers 
say you were living with her in Algiers — ^but you weren't, 
were you? It would be too horrible. In fact, you say 
you weren't. But, all the same, you have stolen her from 
me. It wasn't like you. . . . And this awful murder. 
My God! you don't know what it all means to me. It's 
breaking my heart " 

And Lady Kynnersley wrote — ^with what object I 
scarcely know. The situation was far beyond the poor 
ladjr's by-laws and regulations for the upbringing of 
families and the conduct of life. The elemental mother 
in her battled on the side of her only son — ^foolishly, 
irrationally, imkindly. Her exordium was as correct 
as could be. The tragedy shocked her, the scandal 
grieved her, the innuendoes of the Press she refused to 
believe; she sympathised with me deeply. But then 
she turned from me to Dale, and feminine unreason took 
possession of her pen. She bitterly reproached herself 
for having spoken to me of Madame Brandt. Had she 
known how passionate and real was this attachment, she 
would never have interfered. The boy was broken- 
hearted. He accused me of having stolen her from him 
— ^his own words. He took little interest in his election- 
eering campaign, spoke badly, imconvindngly; spent 
hours in alternate fits of listlessness and anger. She 
feared for her darling's health and reason. She made 
an appeal to me who professed to love him — ^if it were 
honourably possible, would I bring Madame Brandt 
back to him? She was willing now to accept Dale's 
estimate of her worth. Could I, at the least, prevail on 
Madame Brandt to give him some hope — of what she 
did not know — ^but some hope that would save him 
from ruining his career and " doing something desperate" ? 

And another letter from Dale: 

"• • • I can't work at this election. For God's sake, 



10 SIMON THE JESTER 



fAift her hack to me. Then I won't cae. Wbit is 
rwiVuutitrA to me witboot her? And the dectiaa is as 
ptoA IM Imt uXTtzAj. The other side has nade as niDdi 
Mtf(jm\Ae of the nczxnAal. . . P 

l*he only letters that have not been misery to read 
have cr/me from Eleanor Faversham. There was one 
parage which made me thank God that He had created 
ftuch women an Eleanor — 

"Don't fret over the newspaper lies, dear. Those 
who love you — and why shouldn't I love you still?— 
know the honourable gentleman that you are. Write 
to mc if it would case your heart and tell me just what 
you feci you can. Now and always you have my utter 
sympathy and understanding." 

And this is the woman of whose thousand virtues I 
dared to speak in flippant jest. 

Heaven forgive mc. 

After receiving Lady Kynnersley's appeal, I went to 
Lola. It was just before the case came on at the Cour 
d' Assises. She had finished luncheon in her private 
room and was sitting over her coffee. I jcnned her. She 
wore the black blouse and skirt with which I have not 
yet been able to grow familiar, as it robbed her of that 
peculiar fascinating quality which I have tried to sug- 
gest by the word pantherinc. Coffee over, we mov^ 
to the window which opened on a little back garden — 
the room was on the ground floor — in which grew prickly 
pear and mimosa, and newly flowering heliotrope. I 
donH know why I should mention this, except that 
some scenes impress thcm^Mves. for no particukr reason, 
on the memon% while others associaitxl with more 
important incidents hide into va^xacncss. I picked 
a bench of beilotrope which she pinned at her bo^om. 

•"Lob," I said, 'T want to speak to yvxj seriocisij." 

She sdiJed wanly: ** Do w^ ever speak cdaerrise these 
dfJ diTs?'* 



SIMON THE JESTER 199 

''It's about Dale. Read this," said I, and I handed 
her Lady Kynnersle/s letter. She read it through and 
returned it to me. 

"Well?" 

"I asked you a week or two ago what you were going 
to do with your life," I said. "Does that letter offer 
you any suggestion?" 

"I'm to give him some hope — ^what hope can I giTC 
him?" 

"You're a free woman — ^free to marry. For the 
boy's sake the mother will consent. When she knows 
jrou as well as we know you she will ^" 

" She will — ^what ? Love me ? " 

"She's a woman not given to loving — except, in un- 
expected bursts, her offspring. But she will respect 
you." 

She stood for a few moments silent, her arm resting 
against the window jamb and her head on her arm. She 
remained there so long that at last I rose and, looking at 
her face, saw that her eyes were full of tears. She 
dashed them away with the back of her hand, gave me 
a swift look, and went and sat in the shadow of the room. 
An action of this kind on the part of a woman signi- 
fies a desire for solitude. I lit a cigarette and went 
into the garden. 

It was a sorry business. I saw as clearly as Lola that 
Lady Kynnersley desired to purchase Dale's immediate 
happiness at any price, and that the future might bring 
bitter repentance. But I offered no advice. I have 
finished playing at Deputy Providence. A madman 
letting off fireworks in a gunpowder factory plays a less 
dangerous game. 

Presently she joined me and ran her arm through 
mine. 

"I'll write to Dale this afternoon," she said. "Don't 
let us talk of it any more now. You are tired out. It's 



2^ SIMON THE JESTER 



time kr yot vo fiD and lie dowxL PU walk with jmi up 
tiie hiT, '' 

Ii has came it? this, that I must lie down iar same 

hmxrs curiD^ ibe C2} kst I should fall to pieces. 

*•! suppose I'll faai-e to," I laughed. *'What a thing 
it is lo cave the whs of a man and the strength of a 
babv/' 

She pressed nn' arm and said in her low caresai^ 
\x»ce woich I had not heard for many weeks: **I shouldn't 
be so proud of those man's wits, if I were you.** 

I knew she said it plai'fully with reference to mascu- 
line noD -perception of the feminine; but I chose to take 
it broadlv. 

" My dear Lola," said I, " it has been bcnne in upon 
me that I am the most witless fool that the unwisdom 
of generations of English country squires has ever suc- 
ceeded in producing." 

^' Don't talk rot/' she said, with foolishness in her 
eyes. 

She accompanied me bareheaded in the sunshine to 
the gate of my hotel. 

"Come and dine with me, if you're well enough," 
she said as we parted. 

I assented, and when the evening came I went. Did 
I not say that we were like two lost souls wandering 
alcjne in the mist? 

It was only when I rose to bid her good-night that she 
referred to Dale. 

** I wrote to him this afternoon," she announced curtly. 

** You said you would do so." 

** Would you like to know what I told him?" 

Slw i)ut her hands behind her back and stood facing 
mti. homewhat defiantly, in all her magnificence. I 
ttnUltHi, Women, much as they scoff at the blmdness 
4if o\ir st*x, are often transparent. 

'' \t\ >t>ur firm intention to tell me," said L "Well?" 



SIMON THE JESTER 201 

She advanced a step nearer to me, and looked me 
straight in the eyes defiantly. 

''I told him that I loved you with all my heart and 
all my soul. I told him that you didn't know it; that 
you didnH care a brass curse for me; that you had 
acted as you thought best for the happiness of himself 
and me. I told him that while you lived I could not 
think of another man. I told him that if you could face 
Death with a smile on your face, he might very well 
show the same courage and not chuck things right and 
left just because a common woman wouldn't marry him 
or live with him and spoil his career. There! That's 
what I told him. What do you think?" 

"Heaven knows what effect it will have," said I, 
wearily, for I was very, very tired. "But why, my poor 
Lola, have you wasted your love on a shadow like me?" 

She answered after the foolish way of women. 

I have not heard since from either Dale or Lady Kyn- 
nersley. A day or two ago, in reply to a telegram to 
Raggles, I learned that Dale has lost the election. 

This, then, is the end of my apologia pro vita mea, 
which I began with so resonant a flourish of vainglory. 
I have said all that there is to be said. Nothing more 
has happened or is likely to happen until they put me 
under the earth. Oh, yes, I was forgetting. Li spite 
of my Monte Cristo munificence, poor Latimer has been 
hammered on the Stock Exchange. Poor Lucy and the 
kids! 

I shall have, I think, just enough strength left to 
reach Mentone — ^this place is intolerable now — and 
there I shall put myself under the care of a capable 
physician who, with his abominable drugs, will doubt- 
less begin the cheerful work of inducing the mental 
decay which I suppose must precede physiod dissolution. 

I must confess that I am disappointed with the man- 



2Q2 SIMON THE JESTER 

ncr of my exit. I bad inmginfd it quite cfifferenL I 
bad bebeid myself turning with a smile and a jest for 
one last view of the faces over which I, in my eumoiious 
career, had cast the largesse of happiness, and then 
vanisMng with a gallant cardessness through the dusky 
portals. Instead oi that, here am I sneaking out of life 
by the back door, covering my eyes for very shame. 
And glad? Oh, God, how glad I am to slink out of it! 

I have indeed accomplishol the thing which I set out 
to do. I have severed a boy from the object of his 
passion. What an achievement for the crowning glory 
of a lifetime 1 And at what a cost: one fellow-crea- 
ture's life and another's reason. On me lies the respon- 
sibility. Vauvenarde, it is true, did not adorn this 
grey world, but he drew the breath of life, and, through 
my jesting agency, it was cut ofiF. Anastasius Papado- 
poulos, had he not come imder my malign influence, 
would have lived out his industrious, happy and dream- 
filled days. Lesser, but still great price, too, has been 
paid* Jealous hatred, misery and failure for the being 
I care most for in the world, the shame of a sordid scan- 
dal to those that hold me dear, the hopeless love and 
speedy mourning of a woman not without greatness. 

I have tried to make a Tom Fool of Desdny — ^and 
Destiny has proved itself to be the superior jester of 
the two, and has made a grim and bedraggled Tom Fool 
of me. 

... I must end this. I have just fallen in a faint 
on the floor, and Rogers has revived me with some 
drops Hunnington had given me in view of such a con- 
tingency. 

These are the last words I shall write. Life is too 
transcendentally humorous for a man not to take it 
seriously. Compared with it, Death is but a shallow 
jest. 



CHAPTER XVI 

It is many weeks since I wrote those words which I thought 
were to be my last. I read them over now, and laugh 
aloud. Life is more devilishly humorous than I in my 
most nightmare dreams ever imagined. Instead of dying 
at Mentone as I proposed, I am here, at Mustapha Su- 
p^rieiu-, still living. And let me tell you the master joke 
of the Arch- Jester. 

I am going to live. 

I am not going to die. I am going to live. I am quite 
well. 

Think of it. Is it farcical, comical, tragical, or what ? 

This is how it has befallen. The last thing I remember 
of the old conditions was Rogers packing my things, and 
a sudden, awful, excruciating agony. I lost consciousness, 
remained for days in a bemused, stupefied state, which I 
felt convinced was death, and found particularly pleasant. 
At last I woke to a sense of bodily constriction and discom- 
fort, and to the queer realisation that what I had taken for 
the Garden of Proseq^ine was my own bedroom, and that 
the pale lady whom I had so confidently assumed was she 
who, crowned with cahn leaves, " gathers all things mortal 
with cold, immortal hands," was no other than a blue-and- 
white-vested hospital nurse. 

"What the " I began. 

"CAtt/ /" she said, flitting noiselessly to my side. "You 
mustn't talk." And then she poured something down my 
throat. I lay back, wondering what it all meant. Pres- 
ently a grizzled and tanned man, wearing a narrow black 
tie, came into the room. His face seemed oddly familiar. 
The nurse whispered to him. He came up to the bed, 
and asked me in French how I felt. 

203 



204 SIMON THE JESTER 

"I don't know at all," said I. 

He laughed. ''That's a good sign. Let me see how 
you are getting on." He stuck a thermometer in my 
mouth and held my pulse. These formalities completed, 
be turned up the bedclothes and did something with my 
body. Only then did I realise that I was tightly bandaged. 
My impressions grew clearer, and when he raised his face 
I recognised the doctor who had sat on the sofa with 
Anastasius Papadopoulos. 

"Nothing could be better," said he. "Keep quiet, and 
aU will be weU." 

"WiU you kindly explain?" I asked. 

''You've had an operation. Also a narrow escape." 

I smiled at him pityingly. "What is the good of taking 
all this trouble? Why are you wasting your time?" 

He looked at me imcomprehendingly for a moment, 
and then he laughed as the light came to him. 

"Oh, I understand! Yes. Your English doctors had 
told you you were going to die. That an operation would 
be fatal — so your good friend Madame Brandt informed 
us — but we — nous aulres Fran^ais — ^are more enterprising. 
Kill or cure. We performed the operation — ^we didn't 
kill you — and here you are — ciured." 

My heart sickened with a horrible foreboding. A 
clamminess, such as others feel at the approach of death, 
spread over my brow and neck. 

"Good GodI" I cried, "you are not trying to tell me 
that I'm going to live?" 

"Why, of course I am!" he exclaimed, brutally de- 
lighted. "If nothing else kills you, you'll live to be a 
himdred." 

*Oh, damni" said I. "Oh, damn! Oh, damn!" and 
the tears of physical weakness poured down my cheeks. 

^Ce sonl des drdles de gens, les Anglais /" I heard him 
whisper to the nurse before he left the room. 

Belonging to a queer folk or not, I found the prospect 



SIMON THE JESTER 205 

more and more dismally appalling according as my mind 
regained its clarity. It was the most overwhelming, piteous 
disappointment I have ever experienced in my life. I 
cursed in my whimpering, invalid fashion. 

"But don't you want to get weU?" asked the wide-eyed 
nurse. 

" Certainly not ! I thought I was dead, and I was very 
happy. I've been tricked and cheated and fooled," and 
I dflushed my fist against the coimterpane. 

"If you go on in this way," said the nurse, "you will 
commit suicide." 

"I don't care!" I cried — and then, they tell me, fainted. 
My temperature also ran up, and I became lightheaded 
again. It was not imtil the next day that I recovered my 
sanity. This time Lola was in the room with the nurse, 
and after a while the latter left us together. Even Lola 
could not understand my paralysing dismay, 

"But think of it, my dear friend," she argued, "just 
think of it. You are saved — saved by a miracle. The 
doctor says you will be stronger than you have ever been 
before." 

"Ali the more dreadful will it be," said L "I had 
finished with life. I had got throu^ with it. I don't 
want a second lifetime. One is quite enough for any sane 
human being. Why on earth couldn't they have let me 
die?" 

Lola passed her cool hand over my forehead. 

"You mustn't talk like that — Simon,'* she said, in her 
deepest and most caressing voice, using my name somewhat 
hesitatingly, for the first time. " You mustn't. A mirack 
really has been performed. You've been raised from the 
dead — ^like the man in the Gospel " 

"Yes," said I petulantly, "Lazarus. And does the 
Gospel tell us what Lazarus really thought of the un- 
warrantable interference with his plans? Of course he 
had to be polite " 



2o6 SIMON THE JESTER 

"Oh, don't!" cried Lola, shocked. In a queer unen- 
lightened way, she was a religious woman. 

"I'm sorry," said I, feeling ashamed of myself. 

" If you knew how I have prayed God to make you well," 
she said. " If I could have died for you, I would — gladly 
-gladly- " 

"But I wanted to die, my dear Lola," I insisted, with 
the egotism of the sick. "I object to this resuscitation. 
I say it is monstrous that I should have to start a second 
lifetime at my age. It's all very well when you begin at 
the age of half a minute — but when you begin at eight- 
and-thirty years " 

"You have all the wisdom of eight-and-thirty years to 
start with." 

"There is only one thing more disastrous to a man than 
the wisdom of thirty-eight years," I declared with mulish 
inconvincibility, "and that is the wisdom he may accumu- 
late after that age." 

She sighed and abandoned the argument. "We are 
going to make you well in spite of yourself," she said. 

They, namely, the doctor, the nurse, and Lola, have 
done their best, and they have succeeded. But their task 
has been a hard one. The patient's will to live is always 
a great factor in his recovery. My disgust at having to 
live has impeded my convalescence, and I fully believe 
that it is only Lola's tears and the doctor's frenzied appeals 
to me not to destroy the one chance of his life of establish- 
ing a brilliant professional reputation that have made me 
consent to face existence again. 

As for the doctor, he was pathetically insistent. 

"But, tonnerre de Dieu, you must get weU!" he gesticu- 
lated. "I am going to publish it, your operation. It will 
make my fortune. I shall at last be able to leave this hole 
of an Algiers and go to Paris! You don't know what 
Fvc done for you, ingrat I I've performed an operation 
on you that has never been performed successfully before. 



' ' ■ ■ , r- ' ' '- :-. '"^ "-^ 



A \ 



fNOX 



SIMON THE JESTER 207 

I thought it had been done, but I found out afterwards 
my English confrbres were right. It hasn't. I've worked 
a miracle in surgery, and by my publication will make you 
as the subject of it famous for ever. And here you are 
trying to die and ruin everything. I ask you — have you 
no human feelings left?" 

At the conclusion of these lectures I would sigh and 
laugh, and stretch out a thin hand. He shook it always 
with a humorous grumpiness, and a ^^sale bite va /" which 
did me more good than the prospect of acquiring fame in 
the annak of the J^ole de Midicine, 

Here am I, however, cured. I have thrown away the 
stick with which I first began to limp about the garden, 
and I discourage Lola and Rogers in their efiPorts to treat 
me as an invalid. Like the doctor, I have been longing 
to escape from ''this hole of an Algiers" and its painfiH 
associations, and, when I was able to leave my room, it 
ocdured to me that the sooner I regained my strength the 
sooner should I be able to do so. Since then my recovery 
has been rapid. The doctor is delighted, and slaps me on 
the back, and points me out to Lola and the manager and 
the concierge and the hoary old sinner of an Arab who 
displays his daggers, and trays, and embroideries on the 
terrace, as a living wonder. I believe he would like to 
put me in a cage and carry mt about with him in Paris 
on exhibition. But he is reluctantly prepared to part with 
me, and has consented to my return in a few days' time, 
to England, by the North German Lloyd steamer. He 
has ordered the sea voyage as a finishing touch to my cure. 
Good, deluded man, he thifiks that it is his fortuitous 
science that has dragged me out of the Valley of the 
Shadow and set me in the Garden of Life. Good, deluded 
man! He does not realise that he has been merely the 
tool of the Arch- Jester. He has no notion of the sardonic 
joke his knife was chosen to perpetrate. That naked we 
should come into the world, and naked we should go out 



i 



2o8 SIMON THE JESTER 

is a time-honoured pleasantry which, as far as the latter 
part of it is concerned, I did my conscientious best to 
further; but that we should come into it again naked at 
the age of eight-and-thirty is a piece of irony too grim for 
GOntemplation. Yet am I bound to contemplate it. It 
grins me in the face. Figuratively, I am naked. 

Partly by my own act, and partly with the help of Des- 
tiny (the greater jester than I) I have stripped myself of 
all those garments of life which not only enabled me to 
strut peacock-fashion in the pleasant places of the world, 
but also sheltered me from its inclemencies. 

I had wealth — ^not a Rothschild or Vanderbilt fortune 
but enough to assure me ease and luxury. I have stripped 
myself of it. I have but a beggarly sum remaining at 
my bankers. Practically I am a pauper. 

I had political position. I surrendered it as airily as 
I had achieved it; so airily, indeed, that I doubt whether 
I could regain it even had I the ambition. For it was a 
game that I played, sometimes fascinating, sometimes 
repugnant to my fastidious sense of honourable dealing, 
for which I shall never recapture the mood. Mood de- 
pends on conditions, and conditions, as I am trying to 
^ow, are changed. 

I had social position. I did not deceive myself as to 
its value in the cosmic scheme, but it was one of the 
pleasant things to which I was bom, just as I was bom 
to good food and wines and unpatched boots and the mom- 
ing hot water brought into my bedroom. I liked it. I 
suspect that it has fled into eternity with the spirit of 
Captain Vauvenarde. The penniless hero of an amazing 
scandal is not usually miade an idol of by the exclusive 
aristocracy of Great Britain. 

I had a sweet and loyal woman about to marry me. I 
put Eleanor Faversham for ever out of my life. 

I had the devotion and hero-worship of a lad whom I 
thought to train in the paths of honour, love and happi- 



SIMON THE JESTER 209 

ness. In his eyes I suppose I am an unconscionable 
villain. 

I have stripped myself of everything; and all because 
the medical faculty of my country sentenced me to death. 
I really think the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and Physicians 
ought to pay me an indemnity. 

And not only have I stripped myself of everything, but 
I have inciured an incalculable debt. I owe a woman the 
infinite debt of her love which I cannot repay. She sheds 
it on me hourly with a lavishness which scares me. But 
for her tireless devotion, the doctor teUs me, I should not 
have lived. But for her selfless forbearance, sympathy, 
and compassion I should have gone as crazy as Aoasta^us 
Papadopoulos. Yet the burden of my debt lies iceberg 
cold on my heart. Now that we are as intimate as man 
and woman who are still only friends can be, she has lost 
the magnetic attraction, that subtle mystery of the woman 
— half goddess, half panther — ^which fascinated me in 
spite of m3rsclf , and made me jealous of poor yoimg Dak. 
Now that I can see things in some perspective, I confess 
that, had I not been under sentence of death, and, there- 
fore, profoundly convinced that I was immune from all 
such weaknesses of the fiesh, I should have realised the 
temptation of languorous voice and anuous limbs, of the 
frank radiation of the animal enchanted as it was by 
elusive gleams of the spiritual, of the Lalsdom and Thal^ 
dom and Phrynedom, of the Lamiadom — ^in a word, of all 
the sexual damnability in a woman which, as Francois 
Villon points out, set Sardanapalus to spin among the 
women, David to forget the fear of God, Herod to slay 
the Baptist, and made Samson lose his sight Whether I 
should have yielded to or resisted the temptation is aiv 
other matter. Honestly speaking, I think I should hav9 
resisted. 

You see, I should still have been engaged to Eleanor 
Faversham. . . . But now this somewhat unholy inSu- 
14 



2IO SIMON THE JESTER 

enceis gcme from her. She has lifted me in herstrong arms 
as a mother would lift a brat of ten. She has patiently 
suffered my whimsies as if I had been a sick girl. She 
has become to me the mere great mothering creature on 
whom I have depended for custard and the removal of 
crumbs and creases from under my body, and for support 
to my tottering footsteps. The glamour has gone from 
before my eyes. I no longer see her invested in her queer 
splendour. . . . 

My invalid peevishness, too, has accentuated my 
sensitiveness to shades of refinement. There is about 
Lola a bluffness, a hardihood of speech, a contempt for 
the polite word and the pretty conventional turning of a 
phrase, a lack of reticence in the expression of ideas and 
feelings, which jar, in spite of my gratitude, on my unstrung 
nerves. Her ignorance, too, of a thousand things, a 
knowledge of which is the birthright of such women as 
Eleanor Faversham, causes conversational excursions to 
end in innumerable blind alle3rs. I know that she would 
give her soul to learn. This she has told me in so many 
words, and when, in a delicate way, I try to teach her, she 
listens humbly, pathetically, fixing me with her great, 
gold-flecked eyes, behind which a deep sadness bums 
wistfully. Sometimes when I glance up from my book, 
I see that her eyes, instead of being bent on hers have been 
resting long on my face, and they say as clearly as articu- 
late speech: ''Beat me, teach me, love me, use me, do 
what you will with me. I am yoiurs, your chattel, your 
thing, till the end of time." 

I lie awake at night and wonder what I shall do with 
my naked life sheltered only by the garment of this 
woman's love, which I have accepted and cannot repay. I 
groan aloud when I reflect on the irremediable mess, hash, 
bungle I have made of things. Did ever sick man wake 
up to such a hopeless welter? Can you be surprised that 
I regarded it with dismay? Of course, there is a simple 



SIMON THE JESTER 211 

way out of it, and into the shadowy world which I con- 
templated so long, at first with mocking indifference and 
then with eager longing. A gentleman called Cato once 
took it, with considerable aplomb. The means are to my 
hand. In my drawer lies the revolver with which the ex- 
cellent Colonel Bunnion (long since departed from Musta- 
pha Supdrieur) armed me against the banditti of Algiers, 
and which I forgot to return to him. I could empty one 
or more of the six chambers into my person and that would 
be the end. But I don't think history records the suicide 
of any humorist, however dismal. He knows too well the 
tricks of the Arch-Jester^s game. Very likely I should 
merely blow away half my head, and Destiny would give 
my pxxi doctor another chance of achieving immortal 
fame by glueing it on again. No, I cannot think seriously 
of suicide by violent means. Of course, I might follow 
the example of one Antonios Polemon, a later Greek 
sophist, who suffered so dreadfully from gout that he 
buried himself alive in the tomb of his ancestors and 
starved to death. We have a family vault in Highgate 
Cemetery, of which I possess the key. . . . No, I should 
be bored and cold, and the coffins would get on my nerves; 
and besides, there is something suggestive of smug villa- 
dom in the idea of going to die at Highgate. 

Lola came up as I was scribbling this on my knees in the 
garden. 

"What are you writing there?" 

"I am recasting Hamlet's soliloquy," I replied, "and I 
feel all the better for it." 

" Here is your egg and brandy." 

I swallowed it and handed her back the glass. 

"I feel all the better for that, too." 

As I sat in the shade of the little stone sununer-house 
within the Greek portico, she lingered in the blazing sun- 
shine, a figure all glorious health and supple curves, and 
the stray brown hairs above the bronze mass gleamed 



212 SIMON THE JESTER 

with the gold of a Giotto aureole. She stood, a duskily 
glowing, radiant emblem of life against the background 
of spring greenery and rioting convolvulus. I drew a full 
breath and looked at her as if magnetised. I had the very 
oddest sensation. She seemed, in Shakespearean phrase, 
to rain influence upon me. Something electric in her rich 
vitality quickened me. As if she read the stirrings of my 
blood, she smiled and said: 

"After all, confess, isn't it good to be alive?" 

A thrill of physical well-being swept through me. I 
leaped to my feet. 

"You witch!" I cried. "What are you doing to me?" 

"I?" She retreated a step, with a laugh. 

"Yes, you. You are casting a spell on me, so that I 
may eat my words." 

"I don't know what you are talking about, but you 
haven't answered my question. It is good to* be 
alive." 

" Well, it is," I assented, losing all sense of consistency. 

She flourished the egg-and-brandy glass. " Fm so glad. 
Now I know you are reaUy well, and will face life as you 
faced death, like the brave man that you are." 

I cried to her to hold. I had not intended to go as for 
as that. I confronted death with a smile; I meet life with 
the wriest of wry faces. She would have none of my 
arguments. 

"No matter how damnable it is — it's splendid to be 
alive, just to feel that you can fight, just to feel that you 
don't care a damn for any old thmg that can happen, be- 
cause you're strong and brave. I do want you to get back 
all that you've lost, all that you've lost through me, and 
you'll do it. I know that you'll do it. You'll just go out 
and smash up the silly old world and bring it to your feet 
You will, Simon, won't you ? I know you will" 

She quivered like an optimistic Cassandra. 

" My dear Lola," said I. 



SIMON THE JESTER 



213 



I was touched. I took her hand and raised it to my 
lips, whereat she flushed like a girl. 

" Did you come here to teU me all this ?" 

" No," she replied simply. " It came all of a sudden, as 
I was standing here. I've often wanted to say it. I'm 
glad I have." 

She threw back her head and regarded me a moment 
with a strange, proud smile; then turned and walked 
slowly away, her head broshing the long scarlet dusters 
of the pepper trees. 



CHAPTER XVn 

The other day, while looking through a limbo of a drawer 
wherein have been cast from time to time a medley of 
maimed, half-soiled, abortive things, too mifitted for the 
paradise of publication, and too good (so my vanity will 
have it) for the danmation of the waste-paper basket, I 
came across, at the very bottom, the manuscript of the 
preceding autobiographical narrative, the last words oi 
which I wrote at Mustapha Supdrieur three years ago. 
At first I carried it about with me, not caring to destroy 
it and not knowing what in the world to do with it until, 
with the malice of inanimate things, the dirty dog's-eared 
bundle took to haimting me, turning up continually in 
inconvenient places and ever insistently demanding a new 
depository. At last I began to look on it with loathing; 
and one day in a fit of inspiration, creating the limbo 
aforesaid, I hurled the manuscript, as I thought, into 
everlasting oblivion. I had no desire to carry on the 
record of my life any further, and there, in limbo, it has 
remained for three years. But the other day I took it out 
for reference; and now as I am holiday-making in a 
certain little backwater of the world, where it is raining 
in a most unholiday fashion, it occurs to me that, as every- 
thing has happened to me which is likely to happen 
(Heaven knows I want no more excursions and alarums 
in my life's drama), I may as well bring the narrative up 
to date. I therefore take up the thread, so far as I can, 
from where I left oflF. 

Lola, having nothing to do in Algiers, which had grown 
hateful to us both, accompanied me to London. As, 
however, the weather was rough, and she was a very bad 
sailor, I saw little of her on the voyage. For my own part, 

214 



SIMON THE JESTER 215 

I enjoyed the stormy days, the howling winds and the 
infuriated waves dashing impotently over the steamer. 
They filled me with a sense of conflict and of amusement. 
It b always good to see man triumphing over the murderous 
forces of nature. It puts one in conceit with one's kind. 

At Waterloo I handed Lola over to her maid, who had 
come to meet her, and, leaving Rogers in charge of my 
luggage, I drove homeward in a cab. 

It was only as I was crossing Waterloo Bridge and saw 
the dark mass of the Houses of Parliament looming on 
the other side of the river, and the light in the tower which 
showed that the House was sitting, that I began to realise 
my situation. As exiles in desert lands yearn for green 
fields, so yearned I for those green benches. In vain I 
represented to myself how often I had yawned on them, 
how often I had cursed my folly in sitting on them and 
listening to empty babble when I might have been dining 
cosily, or talking to a pretty woman or listening to a comic 
opera, or performing some other useful and soul-satisf)dng 
action of the kind ; in vain I told myself what a monument 
of futility was that building; I longed to be in it and of it 
once again. And when I realised that I yearned for the 
impossible, my heart was like a stone. For, indeed, I, 
Simon de Gex, with London once a toy to my hand, was 
coming into it now a penniless adventurer to seek my 
fortune. 

The cab turned into the Strand, which greeted me as 
affably as a pandemonium. Motor omnibuses whizzed 
at roe, cabs rattled and jeered at me, private motors and 
carriages passed me by in sleek contempt; policemen 
regarded me scornfully as, with uplifted hand regulating 
the traffic, they held me up; pavements full of f)eople 
surged along ostentatiously showing that they did not care 
a brass farthing for me; the thousands of lights with their 
million reflections, from shop fronts, restaurants, theatres, 
and illuminated signs glared pitilessly at me. A harsh 



2i6 SIMON THE JESTER 

roar of derision filled the air, like the bass to the treUe 
of the newsboys who yelled in my face. I was wearing 
a fur-lined coat — ^just the thing a penniless adventurer 
would wear. I had a valet attending to my luggage — 
just the sort of thing a penniless adventurer would have. 
I was driving to the Albany — ^just the sort of place where a 
penniless adventurer would live. And London knew all 
this — and scofifed at me in stony heartlessness. The only 
object that gave me the slightest sympathy was Nelson 
on top of his colunm. He seemed to say, "After all, you 
canU feel such a fool and so much out in the cold as I do 
up here." 

At Piccadilly Circus I found the same atmosphere of 
hostility. My cab was blocked in the theatre-going tide, 
and in neighbouring vehicles I had glimpses of fair faces 
above soft wraps and the profiles of moustached young 
men in white ties. They assumed an aggravating air of 
ownership of the blazing thoroughfare, the only gay and 
joyous spot in London. I, too. had owned it once, but 
now I felt an alien; and the whole spirit of Piccadilly 
Circus rammed the sentiment home — I was an alien and 
an imdesirable alien. I felt even more lost and friendless 
as I entered the long, cold arcade (known as the Rope- 
walk) of the Albany. 

I found my sister Agatha waiting for me in the library. 
I had telegraphed to her from Southampton. She was 
expensively dressed in grey silk, and wore the family 
diamonds. We exchanged the family kiss and the usual 
incoherent greetings of our race. She expressed her de- 
light at my restoration to health and gave me satisfactory 
tidings of Tom Durrell, her husband, of the children, and 
of our sister Jane. Then she shook her head at me, and 
made me feel like a naughty little boy. This I resented. 
Being the head of the family, I had always encouraged the 
deferential attitude which my sisters, dear right-minded 
things, had naturally assimied from babyhood. 






SIMON THE JESTER 217 

"Oh, Simon, what a time you've given us!" 

She had never spoken to me like this in her life. 

"That's nothing, my dear Agatha," said I just a bit 
tartly, "to the time I've given myself. I'm sorry for you, 
but I think you ought to be a little sorry for me." 

" I am. More sorry than I can say. Oh, Simon, how 
could you?" 

" How could I what ? " I cried, unwontedly regardless 
of the refinements of language. 

Mix yourself up in this dreadful affair?" 
My dear girl," said I, "if you had got mixed up in a 
railway collision, I shouldn't ask you how you managed 
to do it. I should be sorry for you and feel your arms 
and legs and inquire whether you had sustained any in- 
ternal injuries." 

She is a pretty, spare woman with a bird-like face and soft 
brown hair just turning grey; and as good-hearted a little 
creature as ever adored five healthy children and an elderly 
baronet with disastrous views on scientific farming. 

" Dear old boy," she said in milder accents, " I didn't 
mean to be imkind. I want to be good to you and help 
you, so much so that I asked Bingley" — Bingley is my 
housekeeper — "whether I could stay to dinner." 

"That's good of you — but this magnificence ?" 

"Fm going on later to the Foreign Ofl&ce reception." 

" Then you do still mingle with the great and gorgeous?" 
I said. 

"What do you mean? Why shouldn't I?" 

I laughed, suspecting rightly that my sisters' social 
position had not been greatly imperilled by the profligacy 
of their scandal-bespattered brother. 

"What are people saying about me?" I asked suddenly. 

She made a helpless gesture. "Can't you guess? You 
have told us the facts, and, of course, we believe you ; we 
have done our best to spread abroad the correct version — 
but you know what people are. If they're told they 



2i8 SIMON THE JESTER 

oughtn't to believe the worst, they're disappointed and still 
go on believing it so as to comfort themselves." 

"You cynical little wretch!" said I. 

"But it's true," she urged. "And, after all, even 
if they were well disposed, the correct version makes 
considerable demands on their faith. Even Lettv 
Farfax " 

"I know, I know!" said I. "Letty Farfax is typical. 
She would love to be on the side of the angels, but as she 
wouldn't meet the best people there, she ranges herself with 
the other party." 

Presently we dined, and during the meal, when the 
servants happened to be out of the room, we continued, 
snippet-wise, the inconclusive conversation. Like a 
good sister Agatha had come to cheer a lonely and much- 
abused man; like a daughter of Eve she had also come to 
find out as much as she possibly could. 

"I think I must tell you something which you ought 
to know," she said. " It's all over the town that you stole 
the lady from Dale Kynnersley." 

" If I did," said I, " it was at his mother's earnest en- 
treaty. You can tell folks that. You can also tell them 
Madame Brandt is not the kind of woman to be stolen by 
one man from anpther. She is a thoroughly virtuous, 
good, and noble woman, and there's not a creature living 
who wouldn't be honoured by her friendship." 

As I made this announcement with an impetuosit)* 
which reminded me (with a twinge of remorse) of poor 
Dale's dithyrambics, Agatha shot at me a quick glance of 
apprehension. 

" But, my dear Simon, she used to act in a circus with a 
horse!" 

" I fail to see," said I, growing angr}', " how the horse 
could have imbued her with depravity, and I'm given to 
understand that the tone of the circus is not quite what ii 
used to be in the days of the Empress Theodora." 



SIMON THE JESTER 219 

A ripple passed over Agatha's bare shoulders, which I 
knew to be a suppressed shrug. 

" I suppose men and women look at these things differ- 
ently," she remarked, and from the stiffness of her lone I 
divined that the idea of moral qualities lurking in the 
nature of Lola Brandt occasioned her considerable dis- 
pleasure. 

"I hope " She paused. There was another ripple. 

^*No. I had better not say it. It's none of my business, 
after all." 

**I don't think it is, my dear," said I. 

Rogers bringing in the cutlets ended the snippet of 
talk. 

It was not the cheeriest of dinners. I took advantage 
of the next interval of quiet to inquire after Dale. I 
learned that the poor boy had almost collapsed after the 
election and was now yachting with young Lord Essen- 
dale somewhere about the Hebrides. Agatha had not 
seen him, but Lady Kynnersley had called on her one day 
in a distracted frame of mind, bitterly reproaching me for 
the unhappiness of her son. I should never have sus- 
pected that such fierce maternal love could bum beneath 
Lady Kynnersley's granite exterior. She accused me of 
treachery towards Dale and, most illogically, of dishonour- 
able conduct towards herself. 

"She said things about you," said Agatha, "for which, 
even if they were true, I couldn't forgive her. So that's 
an end of that friendship. Indeed, it has been very 
difficult, Simon," she continued, "to keep up with our 
common friends. It has placed us in the most painful and 
delicate position. And now you're back, I'm afraid it 
will be worse." 

Thus under all Agatha's affection there ran the general 
hostility of London. Guilty or not, I had offended her 
in her most deeply rooted susceptibilities, and as yet she 
only knew half the imbroglio in which I was enmeshed. 



220 SIMON THE JESTER 

Over coffee, however, she began to take a more optimistic 
view of affairs. 

"After all, you'll be able to live it down," she said with 
a cheerful air of patronage. " People soon forget. Before 
the year is out you'll be going about just as usual, and at 
the General Election you'll &id a seat somewhere." 

I informed her that I had given up politics. What then, 
she asked, would I do for an occupation ? 

"Woik for my living," I replied. 

"Work?" She arched her eyebrows, as if it were the 
most extraordinary thing a man could do. "What kind 
of work?" 

" Road-sweeping or tax-collecting or envelope-addressing." 

She selected a cigarette from the silver box in front of 
her, and did not reply until she had lit it and inhaled a puff 
or two. 

"I wish you wouldn't be so flippant, Simon." 

From this remark I inferred that I still was in the 
criminal dock before this lady Chief Justice. I smiled at 
the airs the little woman gave herself now that I was no 
longer the impeccable and irreproachable dictator of the 
family. Mine was the experience of every fallen tyrant 
since the world began. 

"My dear Agatha," said I, "I've had enough shocks 
during the last few weeks to knock the flippancy out of a 
Congregational minister. In November I was condemned 
to die within six months. The sentence was final and 
absolute. I thought I would do the kind of good one can't 
do with a lifetime in front of one, and I wasted all my 
substance in riotous giving. In the elegant phraseology 
of high society I am stone-broke. As my training has not 
fitted me to earn my living in high-falutin ways, I must 
earn it in some himible capacity. Therefore, if you see 
me call at your house for the water rate, you'll imderstand 
that I am driven to that expedient by necessity and not by 
degradation." 



SIMON THE JESTER 221 

Naturally I had to elaborate this succinct statement 
before my sister could understand its full significance. 
Then dismay overwhelmed her. Surely something could 
be done. The fortunes of Jane and herself were at my 
disposal to set me on my feet again. We were brother and 
sisters; what was theirs was mine; they couldn't see me 
starve. I thanked her for her aflFection — ^the dear creatures 
would unhesitatingly have let me play ducks and drakes 
with their money, but I explained that though poor, I 
was still proud and prized the independence of the tax- 
coUector above the position of the pensioner of Love's 
boimty. 

"Tom must get you something to do," she declared. 

"Tom must do nothing of the kind. Let me say that 
once and for all," I returned peremptorily. "I've made 
my position dear to you, because you're my sister and you 
ought to be spared any further misinterpretation of my 
actions. But to have you dear people intriguing after 
billets for me would be intolerable." 

*'But what are you going to cfo?" she cried, wringing 
her hands. 

"I'm going for my first omnibus ride to-morrow," said 
I heroically. 

Upon which assertion Rogers entered announcing that 
her ladjrship's carriage had arrived. A while later I 
accompanied her downstairs and along the arcade. 

"I shall be so miserable, thinking of you, poor old 
boy," she said aflFectionately, as she bade me good-bye. 

" Don't," said I. " I am going to enjoy myself for the 
first time in my life." 

These were "prave 'orts," but I felt doleful enough 
when I re-entered the chambers where I had lived in un- 
complaining la-'.ury for fourteen years. 

"There's no uelp for it," I murmured. "I must get 
rid of the remainder of my lease, sell my books and 
pictures and other more or less expensive .household gods, 



222 SIMON THE JESTER 

dismiss Rogers and Bingley, and go and live on thirty 
shillings a week in a Bloomsbury boarding-house. I 
thinky" I continued, regarding myself in the Queen Anne 
mirror over the mantelpiece, *' I think that it will better 
harmonise with my fallen fortunes if I refrain from wax- 
ing the ends of my moustache. There ought to be a 
modest droop about the moustache of a tax-collector.'* 

The next morning I gave my servants a month's notice. 
Rogers, who had been with me for many years, behaved 
in the correctest manner. He neither offered to lend me 
his modest savings nor to work for me for no wages. He 
expressed his deep regret at leaving my service and his 
confidence that I would give him a good character. Bing- 
ley wept after the way of women. There was also a 
shadowy housemaidy young person in a cap who used to 
make meteoric appearances and whom I left to the diplo- 
macy of Bingley. These dismal rites performed, I put 
my chambers into the hands of a house agent and inter- 
viewed a firm of auctioneers with reference to the sale. 
It was all exceedingly impleasant. The agent was so 
anxious to let my chambers, the auctioneer so delighted 
at the chance of selling my effects, that I felt myself forth- 
with turned neck and crop out of doors. It was a bright 
morning in early spring, with a satirical touch of hope in 
the air. London, no longer to be my London, maintained 
its hostile attitude to me. If any one had prophesied that 
I should be a stranger in Piccadilly, I should have laughed 
aloud. Yet I was. 

Walking moodily up Saint James's Street I met the 
omniscient and expansive Renniker. He gave me a curt 
nod and a " How d'ye do ? " and passed on. I fek savagely 
disposed to slash his jaunty silk hat off with my walking- 
stick. A few months before he would have rushed effu- 
sively into my arms and bedaubed me with miscellaneous 
inaccuracies of information. At first I was furiously 
indignant. Then I laughed, and swinging my stick 



SIMON THE JESTER 223 

nearly wreaked my vengeance on a harmless elderly 
gentleman. 

It was my first experience of social ostracism. Al- 
though I curled a contumelious lip, I smarted imder the 
indignity. It was ?lII very well to say proudly "«? sofi^ 
io^'; but io used to be a f)erson of some importance who 
was not cavalierly "how d'ye do'd" by creatures like 
Renniker. This and the chance encoimters of the next 
few weeks gave me furiously to think. I knew that in 
one respect my sister Agatha was right. These good folks 
who shied now at the stains of murder with which my repu- 
tation was soiled would in time get used to them and event- 
ually forget them altogether. But I reflected that I should 
not forget, and t determined that I should not be admitted 
on sufferance, as at first I shouW have to be admitted, into 
any man's club or any woman's drawing-room. 

One day Colonel Ellerton, Maisie EUerton's father, 
called on me. He used to be my very good friend; we 
sat on the same side of the House and voted together on 
innumerable occasions in perfect sympathy and common 
lack of conviction. He was cordial enough, congratulated 
me en my marvellous restoration to health, deplored my 
absence from Parliamentary life, and then began to talk 
confusedly of Russia. It took little perspicacity to see 
that something was weighing on the good man's mind; 
something he had come to say and for his honest life could 
not get out. His pKght became more pitiable as the inter- 
view proceeded, and when he rose to go, he grew as 
red as a turkey-cock and began to splutter. I went to 
his rescue. 

" It's very kind of you to have come to see me, Ellerton," 
I said, "but if I don't call yet awhile to pay my respects 
to your wife, I hope you'll understand, and not attribute 
it to discourtesy." ■ 

I have never seen relief so clearly depicted on a himian 
countenance. He drew a long breath and instinctively 



224 SIMON THE JESTER 

passed his handkerchief over his forehead. Then he 
grasped my hand. 

"My dear fellow," he cried, "of course we'll under- 
stand. It was a shocking aflFair — ^terrible for you. My 
wife and I were quite bowled over by it." 

I did not attempt to dear myself. What was the use? 
Every man denies these things as a matter of course, and 
as a matter of course nobody believes him. 

Once I ran across Elphin Montgomery, a mysterious 
personage behind many musical comedy enterprises. 
He is jewelled all over like a first-class Hindoo idol, and 
is treated as a god in fashionable restaurants, where he 
entertains riff-raff at sumptuous banquets. I had some 
slight acquaintance with the fellow, but he greeted me 
as though I were a long lost intimate — his heavy sensual 
face swagged in smiles — and invited me to a supper party. 
I declined with courtesy and walked away in fury. He 
would not have presiuned to ask me to meet his riff-raff 
before I became disgustingly, and I suppose to some minds 
fascinatingly, notorious. But now I was hail-fellow-well- 
met with him, a bird of his own feather, a rogue of his own 
kidney, to whom he threw open the gates of his be- 
diamonded and bef rilled Alsatia. A pestilential fellow! 
As if I would mortgage my birthright for such a mess 
of pottage. 

So I stiffened and bade Society high and low go pack- 
ing. I would neither seek mine own people, nor allow 
myself to be sought by Elphin Montgomeiys. I en- 
wrapped myself in a fine garment of defiance. My sister 
Jane, who was harder and more worldly-minded than 
Agatha, would have had me don a helmet of brass and a 
breastplate of rhinoceros hide and force my way through 
reluctant portak; but Agatha agreed with me, clinging, 
however, to the hope that time would not only reconcile 
Society to me, but would also reconcile me to Society. 

"If the hope comforts you, my dear Agatha," said I, 



SIMON THE JESTER 225 

''by aO means cherish it. In the meantime, allow me to 
observe that the character of Ishmael is eminently suited 
to the profession of tax-collecting." 

Di2ring these early days of my return the one person 
with whom I had no argument was Lola. She soothed 
where others scratched, and stimulated where others 
goaded. The intimacy of my convalescence continued. 
At first I acquainted her, as far as was reasonably neces- 
sary, with my change of fortune, and accepted her oflFer to 
find me less expensive quarters. The devoted woman 
personally inspected every flat in London, with that in- 
sistence of which masculine patience is incapable, and 
eventually decided on a tiny bachelor suite somewhere in 
the clouds over a block of flats in Victoria Street where 
the service is included in the rent. Into this I moved with 
such of my furniture as I withdrew from the auctioneer's 
hanuner, and there I prepared to stay until necessity should 
drive me to the Bloomsbury boarding-house. I thought I 
would graduate my descent. Before I moved, however, 
she came to the Albany for the first and only time to see 
the splendour I was about to quit. In a modest way it was 
splendour. My chambers were really a large double flat 
to the tasteful furnishing of which I had devoted the 
thought and interest of many years. She went with me 
through the rooms. The dining-room was all Chippen- 
dale, each piece a long-coveted and hunted treasure; the 
library old oak; the drawing-room a comfortable and 
cimning medley. There were bits of old China, pieces of 
tapestry, some rare prints, my choice collection of mezzo- 
tints, a picture or two of value — one a Lancret, a very dear 
possession. And there were my books — once I had a 
passion for rare bindings. Every thing had to me a per- 
sonal significance, and I hated the idea of surrender 
more than I dared to confess even to myself. But I said 
to Lola : 

"Vanity of vanities I All things expensive are vanity!" 

'5 



226 SIMON THE JESTER 

Her eyes glistened and she slipped her arm through 
mine and patted the back of my hand. 

''If you talk like that I shall cry and make a fool of 
myself," she said in a broken manner. 

It is not so much the thing that is done or the thing 
that is said that matters, but the way of doing or saying it. 
In the commonplace pat on the hand, in the break in the 
commonplace words there was something that went 
straight to my heart. I squeezed her arm aod whispered: 

" Thank you, dear." 

This sympathy so sure and yet so delicately conveyed 
was mine for the trouble of fnounting the staiis that led 
to her drawing-room in Cadogan Gardens. She seemed 
to be watching my heart the whole time, so that without 
my asking, without my knowledge even, she could touch 
each sore spot as it appeared, with the healing finger. 
For herself she made no claims, and because she did not 
in any way declare herself to be unhappy, I, after the 
manner of men, took her happiness for granted. For 
lives there a man who does not believe that an uncom- 
plaining woman has nothing to complain of? It is his 
masculine prerogative of density. Besides, does not he 
himself when hint bellow like a bull? Why, he argues, 
should not woimded woman do the same? So, when I 
wanted companionship, I used to sit in the familiar room 
and make Adolphus, the Chow dog, shoulder arms with 
the poker, and gossip restfuUy with Lola, who sprawled 
in her old languorous, loose-limbed way among the cush- 
ions of her easy chair. Gradually my habitual reserve 
melted from me, and at last I gave her my whole con- 
fidence, telling her of my disastrous pursuit of eumoiriet}'. 
of Eleanor Fa versham, of the attitude of Society, in fact, o* 
most of what I have set clown in the prccedinp^ pages. She 
was greatly interested in everythinr^, especially in Eleanor 
Faversham. She wanted to know the colour of her eyes 
and hair and how she dressed. Women are odd creatures. 



SIMON THE JESTER 227 

The weeks passed. 

Besides nlinistering to my dilapidated spirit, Lola found 
occupation in looking after the • cattery of Anastasius 
Papadopoulos, which the little man had left in the charge 
of his pupil and assistant, Quast. This Quast apparently 
was a faithful, stolid, but imintelligenf and incapable 
German who had remained loyally at his post until Lola 
found him there in a state of semi-starvation. The sum 
of money with which Anastasius had provided him had 
been eked out to the last farthing. The cats were in a 
pitiable condition. Quast, in despair, was tr}dng to make 
up his dull mind whether to sell them or eat them. Lola 
with superb feminine disregard of legal rights, annexed the 
whole cattery, maintained Quast in his position of pupil and 
assistant and informed the landlord that she would be 
responsible for the rent. Then she set to work to bring 
the cats into their proper condition of sleekness, and, that 
done, to put them through a systematic course of training. 
They had been thoroughly demoralised, she declared, under 
Quast's maladministration, and had almost degenerated 
into the unhistrionic pussies of domestic life. As for 
Hephaestus, the great ferocious tom, he was more like an 
insane tiger than a cat. He flew at the gate over which 
he used to jump, and clawed and bit it to matchwood, and 
after spitting in fury at the blazing hoop, sprang at the 
unhappy Quast as if he had been the contriver of the in- 
dignities to which he was being subjected. These tales 
of feline backsliding I used to hear from I^Ola, and when 
I asked her why she devoted her energies to the unpro- 
ductive education of the uninspiring animals, she would 
shrug her shoulders and regard me with a Giaconda smile. 

"In the first place it amuses me. You seem to forget 
Fm a dompteuse, a tamer of beasts; it's my profession, I 
was trained to it. It's the only thing I can do, and it's 
good to feel that I haven't lost my power. It's odd, but 
I feel a different woman when I'm impressing my will on 



228 SIMON THE JESTER 

these wretched cats. You must come one of these days 
and see a performance, when I've got them ship-shape. 
They'll astonish you. And then," she would add, " I can 
write to Anastasius and tell him how his beloved cats are 
getting on." 

Well, it was an interest in her life which. Heaven knows, 
was not crowded with exciting incidents. Now that I 
can look back on these things with a philosophic eye, I 
can imagine no drearier existence than that of a friendless, 
unoccupied woman in a flat in Cadogan Gardens. At that 
time, I did not realise this as completely as I might have 
done. Because her old surgeon friend. Sir Joshua Old- 
field, now and then took her out to dinner, I considered 
she was leading a cheerful if not a merry life. I smiled 
indulgently at Lola's devotion to the cats and congratulated 
her on having found another means whereby to beguile the 
ktdium vita which is the arch-enemy of content. 

"I wish I could find such a means myself," said L 

I not only had the wish, but the imperative need to do 
so. To stand like Ajax defying the liyghtning is magnifi- 
cent, but as a continuous avocation it is wearisome and 
unprofitable, especially if carried on in a tiny bachelor 
suite, an eyrie of a place, at the top of a block of flats in 
Victoria Street. Indeed, if I did not add soon to the 
meagre remains of my fortune, I should not be able to 
afford the luxury of the bachelor suite. Conscious of this, 
I left the lightning alone, after a last denunciatory shake 
of the fist, and descended into the busy wa]rs of men to 
look for work. 

Thus I entered on the second stage of my career — that 
of a soldier of Fortune. At first I was doubtful as to what 
path to glory and bread-and-butter I could carve out for 
myself. Hitherto I had been Fortune's darling instead of 
her mercenary, and she had most politely carved out my 
paths for me, imtil she had played her jade's trick and left 
me in the ditch. Now things were different. I stood 



SIMON THE JESTER 229 

alone, ironical, ambitionless, still questioning the utility of 
hiunan effort, yet determined to play the game of life to 
its bitter end. What could I do? 

It is true that I had been called to the Bar in my tentative 
youth, while I drafted documents for my betters to pull to 
pieces and rewrite at the Foreign Office; but I had never 
seen a brief, and my memories of Gaius, Justinian, Wil- 
liams's "Real Property," and Austin's "Jurisprudence," 
were as nebulous as those of the Differential Calculus o^^er 
whose facetiae I had pondered during my schooldays. Tu? 
law was as closed to me as medicine. I had no profession. 
I therefore drifted into the one pursuit for which my train- 
ing had qualified me, namely, political journalism. I had 
vmtten much, in my amateur way, during my ten years' 
membership of Parliament; why, I hardly know — ^not 
because I needed money, not because I had thoughts which 
I burned to express, and certainly not through vain desire 
of notoriety. Perhaps the motive was twofold, an in- 
grained Puckish delight in the incongruous — ^it seemed 
incongruous for an airy epicurean like myself to spend 
stodgy hours writing stodgier articles on Pauper Lunacy 
and Poor Law Administration — and the same inherited 
sense of gentlemanly obligation to do something for one's 
king and country as made my ancestors, whether they 
liked it or not, clothe themselves in uncomfortable iron 
garments and go about fighting other gentlemen similarly 
clad, to their own great personal danger. At any rate, it 
complemented my work at St. Stephen's, and doubtless 
contributed to a* reputation in the House which I did not 
gain through my oratory. I could therefore bring to 
editors the stock-in-trade of a fairly accurate knowledge of 
current political issues, an appreciation of personalities, 
and a pldlosophical subrident estimate of the bubbles that 
are for ever rising on the political surface. I found Finch 
of The Universal Review^ James of The Weekly^ and one or 
two others more than willing to give me employment. I 



230 



SIMON THE JESTER 



put my pen also at the disposal of Raggles. It was as 
uplifting and about as mechanical as tax-collecting; but 
it involved less physical exertion and less unpleasant contact 
with my fellow creatures. I could also keep the ends of 
my moustache waxed, which was a great consolation. 

My sister Agatha commended my courage and energj', 
and Lola read my articles with a glowing enthusiasm, 
which compensated for lack of exact understanding; but 
I was not proud of my position. It is one thing to stand 
at the top of a marble staircase and in a debonair, jesting 
fashion to fling insincere convictions to a recipient world. 
It is another to sell the same worthless commodity for 
money. I began, to my curious discomfort, to suspect that 
life had a meaning after all. 



CHAPTER XVra 

One day I had walked from Cadogan Gardens with a 
gadfly phrase of Lola's tormenting my ears: 

*' You're not quite alive even yet." 

I had spent most of the day over a weekly article for 
James's high-toned periodical, using the same old shib- 
bolethSy proclaiming Gilead to be the one place for balm, 
juggling with the same old sophistries, and proving that 
Pope must have been out of his mind when he declared that 
an honest man was the noblest work of God, seeing that 
nobler than the most honest man was the disingenuous 
government held up to eulogy; and I had gone tired, 
dispirited, out of conceit with m)rself to Lola for tea and 
consolation. I had not been the merriest company. I 
had spoken gloomily of the cosmos, and when Ado^hus 
the Chow dog had walked down the room on his hind legs, 
I had railed at the futility of canine efifort. To Lola, who 
had put forth all her artillery of artless and harmless 
coquetry in voice and gesture, in order to Ime my thoughts 
into pleasanter ways, I exhibited the querulous grumpn- 
ness of a spoiled village octogenarian. We discussed 
the weather, which was worth discussing, for the spring, 
after long tarrying, had come. It was early May. Ldia 
laughed. 

"The spring has got into my blood." 

''It hasn't got into mine," I declared. "It never will. 
I wonder what the deuce is the matter mth me." 

Then Lola had said, " My dear Simon, I know. You're 
not quite alive even yet." 

I walked homewards pestered by the phrase. What 
did she mean by it? I stopped at the island round the 

231 



232 SIMON THE JESTER 

clock-tower by Victoria Station and bought a couple of 
newspapers. There, in the centre of the whirlpool where 
swam dizzily omnibuses, luggage-laden cabs, whirling 
motors, feverish, train-seeking humans, dirty newsboys, 
I stood absently saying to myself, " You're not quite alive 
even yet." 

A hand gripped my arm and a cheery voice said " Hallo !" 
I started and recognised Rex Campion. I also said 
"Hallo!" and shook hands with him. We had not met 
since the day when, having heard of my Monte Cristo 
lavishness, he had called at the Albany and had beguiled 
me into giving a thousand pounds to his beloved "Bar- 
bara's Bmlding," the prodigious philanthropic institution 
which he had founded in the slums of South Lambeth. 
In spite of my dead and dazed state of being I was pleased 
to see his saturnine black-bearded face, and K> hear his 
big voice. He was one of those men who always talked 
like a megaphone. The porticoes of Victoria Station re- 
echoed with his salutations. I greeted him less vocifer- 
ously, but with equal cordiality. 

I said "Hallo!" 

"You're looking very fit. I heard that you had gone 
through a miraculous operation. How are you?" 

" Perfectly well," said I, " but I've been told that Tm 
not quite aUve even yet." 

He looked anxious. "Remains of trouble?" 

" Not a vestige," I laughed. 

" That's all right," he said breezily. " Now come along 
and hear Milligan speak." 

It did not occur to him that I might have work, worries, 
or engagements, or that the evening's entertainment which 
he offered me might be the last thing I should appreciate. 
His head, for the moment, was full of Milligan, and it 
seemed to him only natural that the head of all humanity 
should be full of Milligan too. I made a wry face. 

"That son of thunder?" 



SIMON THE JESTER 233 

Milligan was a demagogue who had twice unsuccessfully 
attempted to get into Parliament in the Labour interest. 

"Have you ever heard him?" 

"Heaven forbid!" said I in my pride. 

" Then come. He's speaking in the Hall of the Lambeth 
Ethical Society." 

I was tempted, as I wanted company. In spite of my 
high resolve to out-Ishmael Ishmael, I could not kill a 
highly developed gregarious instinct. I also wanted a 
text for aix article. But I wanted my dinner still more. 
Campion condemned the idea of dinner. 

"You can have a cold supper," he roared, "like the rest 
of us." 

I 3delded. Campion dragged me helpless to a tram at 
the top of Vauxhall Bridge Road. 

" It will do Your Mightiness good to mingle with the 
proletariat," he grinned. 

I did not tell him that I had been mingling with it in 
this manner for some time past or that I repudiated the 
suggestion of its benign influence. I entered the tram 
meekly. As soon as we were seated, he began: 

"I bet you won't guess what I've done with your thou- 
sand pounds, m give you a million guesses." 

As I am a poor conjecturer, I put on a blank expression 
and shook my head. He waited for an instant, and then 
shouted with an air of triumph: 

" Fve founded a prize, my boy — a stroke of genius. I've 
called it by yoiu: name. *The de CJex Prize for House- 
wives.' I didn't bother you about it as I knew you were 
in a world of worry. But just think of it. An annual 
prize of thirty pounds — ^practically the interest — ^for house- 
wives!" 

His eyes flashed in his enthusiasm; he brought his heavy 
hand down on my knee. 

"Well?" I asked, not electrified by this announcement. 

"Don't you see?" he exclaimed. "I throw the com- 



234 SIMON THE JESTER 

petition open to the women in the district, with certain 
qualifications, you know — ^I look after all that. They enter 
their names by a given date and then they start fair. The 
woman who keeps her home tidiest and her children 
cleanest collars the prize. Isn't it splendid?'* 

I agreed. " How many competitors ? " 

"Forty-three. And there they are working away, 
sweeping their floors and putting up clean curtains and 
scrubbing their children's noses till they shine like rubies 
and making their homes like little Dutch pictures. You 
see, thirty pounds is a devil of a lot of moneys for poor 
people. As one mother of a large family said to me, 
*With that one could bury them all quite beautiful.'" 

" You're a wonderful fellow," said I, s<Mnewhat enviously. 

He gave an awkward laugh and tugged at his beard. 

"I've only happened to find my job, and am doing it 
as well as I can," he said. "'Tisn't very much, after all. 
Sometimes one gets discouraged; people are such ungrate- 
ful pigs, but now and again one does help a lame dog over 
a stile which bucks one up, you know. Why don't you 
come down and have a look at us one of these da3rs? 
You've been promising to do so for years." 

"I will," said I with sudden interest. 

"You can have a peep at one or two of the competing 
homes. We pop into them unexpectedly, at all hours. 
That's a part of the game. We've a complicated s)rstem 
of marks which Fll show you.' Of course, no woman 
knows how she's getting on, otherwise many would lose 
heart." 

"How do the men like this disconcerting ubiquity of 
soap and water?** 

"They love it!" he cried. "The}^re keen on the 
prize too. Some think they'll grab the lot and have 
the devil's own drunk when the year's up. But I'll 
look after that. Besides, when a chap has been living 
in the pride of cleanliness for a year he'll get' into the 



SIMON THE JESTER 235 

way of it and be less likely to make a beast of him- 
self. Anyway, I hope for the best. My God, de Gex, 
if I didn't hope and hope and hope," he cried earnestly, 
"I don't know how I should get through with it. I 
don't know how any one can get through anything with- 
out hope and a faith in the ultimate good of things." 

"The same inconvindble optimist?" said I. 

"Yes. Thank heaven. And you?" 

I paused. There came a self-revelatory flasL "At 
the present moment," I said, "I'm a perfectly convincible 
vacuist." 

We left the tram and the main thoroughfare, and 
turned into frowsy streets, peopled with frowsy men 
and women and raucous with the bickering play of 
frowsy children. It was still daylight. Over London 
the spring had fluttered its golden pinions, and I knew 
that in more blessed quarters — ^in the great parks, in 
Piccadilly, in Old Palace Yard, half a mile away — its 
fragrance lingered, quickening blood already quickened 
by hope, and making happier hearts alr^idy happy. 
But here the ray of spring had never penetrated either 
that day or the days of former springs; so there was no 
lingeiing fragrance. Here no one heeded the aspects 
of the changing year save when suffocated by sweltering 
heat, or frozen in the bitter cold, or drenched by the 
pouring rain. Otherwise in these grey, frowsy streets 
spring, summer, autumn, winter were all the same to 
the grey frowsy people. It is true that youth laughed 
— paACf animal bojrs, and pale, flat-chested girls. But 
it laughed chiefly at inane obscenity. 

One of these days, when phonography is as practicable 
as photography, some one will make accurate records 
in these frowsy streets, and then, after the manner of 
the elegant writers of Bucolics and Pastorals, publish 
such a series of Urbanics and Pavimentals, phono- 
graphic dialogues between the Colins and Duldbellas of 



236 SIMON THE JESTER 

the pavement and the gutter as will freeze up Hell with 
horror. 

An anemic, flirtatious group passed us, the girls in 
front, the boys behind. 

"Good God, Campion, what can you do?" I asked. 

" Kty them, old chap," he returned quickly. 

" Whaf s the good of that?" 

"Good? Oh, I see!" He laughed, with a touch of 
scorn. "It's a question of definition. When you see 
a fellow creature suffering and it shocks your refined 
susceptibilities and you say *poor devil' and pass on, 
you think you have pitied him. But you haven't. You 
think pity^s a passive virtue. It isn't. If you really 
pity anybody, you go mad to help him — ^you don't stand 
by with tears of sensibility running down your cheeks. 
You stretch out yoiu: hand, because you've danm well 
got to. If he won't take it, or wipes you over the head, 
that's his look-out. You can't work miracles. But 
once in a way he does take it, and then — ^well, you work 
like hell to pull him through. And if you do, what big- 
ger thing is there in the world than the salvation of 
a human soul?" 

" It's worth living for," said I. 

"It's worth doing any confounded old thing for," he 
declared. 

I envied Campion as I had envied no man before. He 
was alive in heart and soul and brain; I was not quite 
alive even yet. But I felt better for meeting him. I 
told him so. He tugged his beard again and laughed. 

"I am a happy old crank. Perhaps that's the reason." 

At the door of the hall of the Lambeth Ethical Society 
he stopped short and turned on me; his jaw dropped 
Und he regarded me in dismay. 

"Fm the flightiest and feather-headedest ass that 
ever brayed," he informed me. "I just remember I 
sent Miss Faversham a ticket for this meeting about a 



SIMON THE JESTER 237 

fortnight ago. I had clean forgotten it, though some- 
thing uncomfortable has been tickling the back of my 
head all the time. I'm miserably sorry." 

I hastened to reassure him. ''Miss Faversham and 
I are still good friends. I don't think she'll mind my 
nodding to her from the other side of the room." In- 
deed, she had written me one or two letters since my 
recovery perfect in tact and sympathy, and had put her 
loyal friendship at my service. 

"Even if we meet," I smiled, "nothing tragic will 
happen." 

He expressed his relief. 

"But what," I asked, "is Miss Faversham doing in 
this galley?" 

"I suppose she is displaying an intelligent interest in 
modem thought," he said, with boyish delight at the 
chance I had offered him. 

"T(nw;A^," said I, with a bow, and we entered the 
hall. 

It was crowded. The audience consisted of the better 
class of artisans, tradesmen, and foremen in factories: 
there was a sprinkling of black-coated clerks and un- 
skilled labouring men. A few women's hats sprouted 
here and there among the men's heads like weeds in a 
desert. There were women, too, in proportionately 
greater niunbers, on the platform at the end of the hall, 
and among then^ I was quick to notice Eleanor Faver- 
sham. As Campion disliked platforms and high places 
in synagogues, we sat on one of the benches near the 
door. He explained it was also out of consideration 
for me. 

"If Milligan is too strong for your proud, aristocratic 
stomach," he whispered, "you can cut and run without 
attracting attention." 

Milligan had evidently just begim his discoiu-se. I 
had not listened to him for five minutes when I found 



238 SIMON THE JESTER 

myself caught in the grip which he was famous for 
fastening on his audience. With his subject — Nation- 
alisation of the Land — and his arguments I had been 
perfectly familiar for years. As a boy I had read 
Henry George's "Progress and Poverty" with the 
superciliousness of the young believer in the divine 
right of Britain's landed gentry, and before the Eton 
Debating Society I had demolished the whole theory to 
my own and every one else's satisfaction. Later, as a 
practical politician, I had kept myself abreast of the 
Socialist movement. I did not need Mr. John Milligan, 
whom my lingering flippancy had called a son of thun- 
der, to teach me the elements of the matter. But at 
this peculiar crisis of my life I felt that, in a queer, un- 
known way, Milligan had a message for me. It was 
uncanny. I sat and listened to the exposition of Utopia 
with the rapt intensity of any cheesemonger's assistant 
there before whose captured spirit floated the vision of 
days to coifte when the land should so flow with milk and 
money that golden cheeses would be like buttercups 
for the plucking. It was not the man's gospel that 
fascinated me, nor his illuminated prophecy of the 
millennium that produced the vibrations in my soul, but 
the surging passion of his faith, the tempest of his en- 
thusiasm. I had enough experience of public speaking 
to distinguish between the theatrical and the genuine in 
oratory. Here was no tub-thumping soothsayer, but 
an inspired zealot. He lived his impassioned creed in 
every fibre of his frame and faculties. He was Titanic, 
this rough miner, in his unconquerable hope, divine in 
his yearning love of himianity. 

When he ended there was a dead silence for a second, 
and then a roar of applause from the pale, earnest, city- 
stamped faces. A lump rose in my throat. Campion 
clutched my knee. A light burned in his eyes. 

" Well ? What about Boanerges ? " 



SIMON THE JESTER 239 

"Only one thing," said I, "I wish I were as alive 
as that man." 

A negligible person proposed a vote of thanks to 
Milligan, after which the hall began to empty. Cam- 
pion, caught by a group of his proletariat friends, sig- 
nalled to me to wait for him. And as I waited I saw 
Eleanor Faversham come slowly from the platform 
down the central gangway. Her eyes fixed themselves 
on me at once — ^for standing there alone I must have 
been a conspicuous figure, an intruder from the gorgeous 
West — and with a little start of pleasure she hurried 
her pace. I made my way past the chattering loiterers 
in my row, and met her. We shook hands. 

"Well? Saul among the prophets? Who would 
have thought of seeing you here!" 

I waved my hand towards Campion. "We have 
the same sponsor." She glanced at him for a swift 
instant and then at me. 

"DidyouUkeit?" 

" Have you seen ^fiagara ?" 

" Yes " 

"Did you like it?" 

"I'm so glad," she cried. "I thought perhaps *^ 

she broke off. "Why haven't you tried to see me?** 

"There are certain conventions." 

" I know," she said. " They're idiotic." 

" There's also Mrs. Faversham," said I. 

"Mother is the dearest thing in life," she replied, 
"but Mrs. Faversham is a convention." She came 
nearer to me, in order to allow a freer passage down 
the gangway and also in order to be out of earshot 
of an elderly woman who was obviously accompany- 
ing her. "Simon, I've been a good friend to you. I 
believe in you. Nothing will shake my convictions. 
You couldn't lock into my eyes like that if — ^well — you 
know." 



"% 



240 SIMON THE JESTER 

"I couldn't," said I. 

"Then why can't two honourable, loyal people meet? 
We only need meet once. But I want to tell you things 
I can't write — ^things I can't say here. I also want 
to hear of things. I think Tve got a kind of claim — 
haven't I?" 

" I've told you, Eleanor. My letters ^" 

"Letters are rubbish!" she declared with a laugh. 
"Where can we meet?" 

" Agatha is a good soul," said L 

" Well, fix it up by telephone to-morrow." 

" Alas ! " said I ; " I don't run to telephones in my eagle's 
nest on Himalaya Mansions." 

She knitted her brows. "That's not the last address 
you wrote from." 

"No," I replied, smiling at this glimpse of the matter- 
of-fact Eleanor. " It was a joke." 

"You're incorrigible!" she said rebukingly. 

"I don't joke so well in rags as in silken motley," 
I returned with a smile, "but I do my best." 

She disdained a retort. "We'll arrange, anyhow, 
with Agatha." 

Campion, escaping from his friends, came up and 
chatted for a minute. Then he saw Eleanor and her 
companion to their carriage. 

"Now," said he a moment later, "come to Barbara 
and have some supper. You won't mind if Jenkins 
joins us ? " 

"Who's Jenkins?" I asked. 

"Jenkins is an intelligent gas-fitter of Sociological 
tastes. He classes Herbert Spencer, Benjamin Kidd, 
and Lombroso as light literature. He also helps us 
with our young criminals. I should like you to meet 
him." 

"I should be delighted," I said. 

So Jenkins was summoned from a little knot a few 



SIMON THE JESTER 241 

yards off and duly presented. Whereupon we proceeded 
to Campion's plain but comfortably furnished quarters 
in Barbara's Building, where he entertained us till 
nearly midnight with cold beef and cheese and strenuous 
conversation. 

As I walked across Westminster Bridge on my home- 
ward way it seemed as if London had grown less hostile. 
Big Ben chimed twelve and there was a distinct Dick 
Whittington touch about the music. The light on the 
tower no longer mocked me. As I passed by the gates 
of Palace Yard, a policeman on duty recognised me and 
saluted. I strode on with a springier tread and noticed 
that the next policeman who did not know me, still 
regarded me with an air of benevolence. A pale moon 
shone in the heavens and gave me shyly to understand 
that she was as much my moon as any one else's. As 
I turned into Victoria Street, omnibuses passed me 
with a lurch of friendliness. The ban was lifted. I 
danced (figuratively) along the pavement. 

What it portended I did not realise. I was conscious 
of nothing but a spiritual exhilaration comparable 
only with the physical exhilaration I experienced in 
the garden in Algiers when my bodily health had been 
finally established. As the body then felt the need 
of expressing itself in violent action — ^in leaping and 
running (an impulse which I firmly subdued), so now 
did my spirit crave some sort of expression in violent 
emotion. I was in a mood for enraptured converse 
with an archangel. 

Looking back, I see that Campion's friendly "Hallo" 
had awakened me from a world of shadows and set me 
among realities; the impact of Milligan's vehement 
personality had changed the conditions of my life from 
static to dynamic; and that a Providence which is 
not always as ironical as it pleases us to assert had 
sent Eleanor Faversham's graciousness to mitigate 
16 



242 



SIMON THE JESTER 



the severity of the shock. I see how just was Lola^s 
diagnosis. "You're not quite alive even yet." I had 
been going about in a state of suspended spiritual 
animation. 
My recovery dated from that evening. 



CHAPTER XrX 

Agatha proved herself the good soul I had represented 
her to be. 

"Certainly, dear," she said when I came the following 
morning with my request. "You can have my boudoir 
all to yourselves." 

"I am grateful," said I, "and for the first time I 
forgive you for calling it by that abominable name." 

It was an old quarrel between us. Every lover of 
language picks out certun words in common use that be 
hates with an unreasoning ferocity. 

"I'll change it's title if you like," she said meekly. 

''If you do, my dear Agatha, my gratitude will be 
eternal," 

"I remember a certain superior person, when Tom 
and I were engaged, calling mother's boudoir — the only 
quiet place in the house — the oscuiatorium." 

She laughed with the air of a small bird who after long 
waiting had at last got even with a hawk. But I did 
not even smile. For the only time in our lives I con- 
sidered that Agatha had committed a breach of good 
taste. I said rather stiffly: 

" It is not going to be a lovers' meeting, my dear." 

She flushed. "It was silly of me. But why shouldn't 
it be a lovers' meeting?" she added audaciously. "If 
nothing had happened, you two would have be^ mar^ 
ried by this time " 

" Not till June." 

"Oh, yes, you would. 1 should have seen about 
that — a ridiculously long engagement. Anyhow, it 
was only your illness that broke it off. You were told 



244 SIMON THE JESTER 

you were going to die. You did the only honouraUe 
and sensible tUng — ^both of you. Now you're in splen> 
did health again ^' 

"Stop, stop!" I interrupted. "You seem to be en- 
tirely oblivious of the circumstances " 

"I'm oblivious of no circumstances. Ndther is 
Eleanor. Aud if she still cares for you she won't care 
twopence for the drcimistances. I know I wouldn't" 

And to cut off my reply she clapped the receiver of 
the telephone to her ear and called up Eleanor, with 
whom she proceeded to arrange a date for the interview. 
Presently she screwed her head roimd. 

"She says she can come at foiu: this afternoon. WiU 
that suit you?" 

"Perfectly," said L 

When she replaced the receiver I stepped behind her 
and put my hands on her shoulders. 

"*The mother of mischief,'" I quoted, "*is no 
bigger than a midge's wing,' and the grandmother is the 
match-making microbe that liurks in every wcnnan's 
system." 

She caught one of my hands and looked up into my face. 

"You're not cross with me, Simon?" 

Her tone was that of the old Agatha. I laughed, re- 
membering the policeman's salute of the previous night, 
and noted this recovery of my ascendancy as another 
indication of the general improvement in the attitude of 
London. 

"Of course not, Tom Tit," said I, calling her by her 
nursery name. "But I absolutely forbid jrour thinlring 
of playing Fairy Godmother." 

"You can forbid my playing," she laughed, "and I 
can obey you. But jrou can't prevent my thinking. 
Thought is free." 

"Sometimes, my dear," I retorted, "it is better chained 
up." 



SIMON THE JESTER 245 

Wth this rebuke I left her. No doubt, she con- 
sidered a renewal of my engagement with Eleanor 
Faversham a romantic solution of difficulties. I could 
only regard it as preposterous, and as I walked back to 
Victoria Street I convinced myself that Eleanor's frank 
ofifer of friendship proved that such an idea never entered 
her head. I took vehement pains to convince myself 
Spring had come; like the year, I had awakened from 
my lethargy. I viewed life through new eyes; I felt it 
with a new heart. Such vehement pains I was not 
capable of taking yesterday. 

"It has never entered her head!" I declared conclu- 
sively. 

And jret, as we sat together a few hours later in 
Agatha's little room a doubt began to creep into the cor- 
ners of my mind. In her strong way she had brushed 
away the scandal that hung around my name. She did 
not believe a word of it. I told her of my loss of fortune/ 
My lunacy rather raised than lowered me in her esteem. 
How then was I personally di£Ferent from the man she 
had engaged herself to marry six months before? I 
remembered our parting. I remembered her letters. 
Her presence here was proof of her unchanging regard. 
But was it something more? Was there a hope throb- 
bing beneath that calm sweet surface to which I did not 
respond? For it often happens that the more direct a 
woman is, the more in her feminine heart is she elusive. 

Clean-built, clean-hearted, clean-eyed, of that clean 
comple!don which suggests the open air, Eleanor im- 
pressed you with a sense of bodily and mental whole- 
someness. Her taste in dress ran in the direction of 
plain tailor-made gowns (I am told, by the way, that 
these can be fairly expensive), and shrank instinctively 
from the frills and fripperies to which daughters of Eve 
are notoriously addicted. She spoke in a clear voice 
which some called hard, though I never foimd it so; she 



246 SIMON THE JESTER 

carried herself proudly. Chaste in thought, frank in 
deed, she was a perfect specimen of the highly bred, 
purely English type of woman who, looking at facts 
squarely in the face, accepts them as facts and does not 
allow her imagination to dally in any atmosphere where- 
in they may be invested. To this type a vow is irre- 
fragable. Loyalty is inherent in her like her blood. She 
never changes. What feminine inconsistencies she has 
at fifteen she retains at five-and-twenty, and preserves 
to add to the charms of her old age. She is the exem- 
plary wife, the great-hearted mother of children. She 
has sent her sons in thousands to fight her country's 
battles overseas. Those things which lie in the outer 
temple of her soul she gives lavishly. That which is 
hidden in her inner shrine has to be wrested from her 
by the one hand she loves. Was mine that hand ? 

It will be perceived that I was beginning to take life 
seriously. 

Eleanor must have also perceived something of the 
sort; for during our talk she said irrelevantly: 
You've changed!" 
In what way?" I asked. 

"I don't know. You're not the same as you were. 
I seem to know you better in some ways, and yet I seem 
to know you less. Why is it ?" 

I said, " No one can go through the Valley of the Gro- 
tesque as I have done without suffering some change." 

"I don't see why you should call it *the Vsdley of 
the Grotesque.'" 

I smiled at her instinctive rejection of the fanciful. 

•* Don't you? Call it the VaUey of the Shadow, if 
you Uke. But don't you think the attendant circum- 
stances were rather mediaeval, gargoyley, Orcagnesque? 
Don't you think the whole passage lacked the dignity 
which one associates with the Valley of the Shadow of 
Death?" 



4( 



SIMON THE JESTER 247 

''You mean the murder?" she said with a faint 
shiver. 

"That," said I, "might be termed the central fea- 
ture. Just look at things as they happened. I am 
condemned to death. I try to face it like a man and a 
gentleman. I make my arrangements. I gire up 
what I can call mine no longer. I think I will devote 
the rest of my days to performing such acts of helpful- 
ness and charity as would be impossible for a sound man 
with a long life before him to undertake. I do it in a 
half-jesting spirit, refusing to take death seriously. I 
pledge myself to an act of helpfulness which I regard at 
first as merely an incident in my career of beneficence. 
I am gradually caught in the tangle of a drama which at 
times develops into sheer burlesque, and before I can 
realise what is going to happen, it turns into ghastly 
tragedy. I am overwhelmed in grotesque disaster — ^it 
is the only word. Instead of creating happiness all 
around me, I have played havoc with human lives. I 
stand on the brink and look back and see that it is all 
one gigantic devil-jest at my expense. I thank God I 
am going to die. I do die — ^for practical purposes. I 
come back to life and — here I am. Can I be quite the 
same person I was a year ago?" 

She reflected for a few moments. Then she said: 

"No. You can't be — quite the same. A man of 
your nature would either have his satirical view of life 
hardened into bitter cynicism or he would be softened 
by suffering and face things vrith new and nobler ideals. 
He would either still regard life as a jest — but instead 
of its being an odd, merry jest it would be a grim, mean- 
ingless, hideous one; or he would see that it wasn't a 
jest at all, but a full, wonderful, big reality. Fve ex- 
pressed myself badly, but you see what I mean." 

"And what do you think has happened?" I asked. 

'* I think you have changed for the better." 



248 SIMON THE JESTER 

I smiled inwardly. It sounded rather dull. I said 
with a smile: 

"You never liked my cap and bells, Eleanor." 

"No!" she replied emphatically. "What's the use 
of mockery? See where it led you." 

I rose, half-laughing at her earnestness, half-ashamed 
of myself, and took a couple of turns across the room. 

"You're right," I cried. "It led me to perdition. 
You might make an allegory out of my career and en- 
title it * The Mocker's Progress.' " I paused for a second 
or two, and then said suddenly, "Why did jrou from 
the first refuse to believe what everybody else does 
— ^before I had the chance of looking you in the eyes?" 

She averted her face. "You forget that I had had 
the chance of searching deep beneath the mocker." 

I cannot, in reverence to her, set down what she said 
she had found there. I stood humbled and rebuked, as 
a man must do when the best in him is laid out before 
his sight by a good woman. 

A maidservant brought in tea, set the table, and 
departed. Eleanor drew off her gloves and my glance 
fell on her right hand. 

" It's good of you to wear my ring to-day," I said. 

"To-day?" she echoed, with the tiniest touch of 
injury in her voice. "Do you think I put it on to just 
please you to-day?" 

"It would have been gracious of you to do so," said I. 

"It wouldn't," she declared. "It would have been 
mawkish and sentimental. When we parted I told you 
to do what you liked with the ring. Do you remember? 
You put it on this finger" — she waved her right hand — 
"and there it has stayed ever since." 

I caught the hand and touched it lightly with my lips. 
She coloured faintly. 

" Two lumps of sugar and no milk, I think that's right ?" 
She handed me the tea-cup. 



SIMON THE JESTER 249 

" It's like you," said I, " not to have forgotten." 

"Fm a practical person," she replied with a laugh. 

Presently she said, "Tell me more about your illness 
rather your recovery. I know nothing except that 
you had a successful operation which all the London 
surgeons said was impossible. Who nursed you?" 

" I had a trained nurse," said I. 

"Wasn't Madame Brandt with you?" 

"Yes," said I. "She was very good to me. In fact, 
I think I owe her my life." 

Hitherto the delicacy of the situation had caused me 
to refer to Lola no more than was necessary, and in my 
narrative I had piuposely left her vague. 

"That's a great debt," said Eleanor. 

"It is, indeed," said I. 

"You're not the man to leave such a debt unpaid?" 

"I try to repay it by giving Madame Brandt my de- 
voted friendship." 

Her eyes never wavered as they held mine. 

"That's one of the things I wanted to know. Tell 
me something about her." 

I felt some surprise, as Eleanor was of a nature too 
proud for curiosity. 

" Why do you want to know ? " 
Because she interests me intensely. Is she young?" 
About thirty-two." 
Good-looking?" 

" She is a woman of remarkable personality." 

" Describe her." 

I tried, stiunbled, and halted. The eflFort evoked in 
my mind a picture of Lola lithe, seductive, exotic, with 
gold flecks in her dusky, melting eyes, with strong shapely 
arms that had as yet only held me motherwise, with 
her pantherine suggestion of tremendous strength in 
languorous repose, with her lazy gestures and parted 
lips showing the wonderful white even teeth, with all 






250 



SIMON THE JESTER 



<c 



<i 



her fascination and charm — a, picture of Lola such as I 
had not seen since my emergence from the Valley — a 
picture of Lola, generous, tender, wistful, strong, yield- 
ing, fragrant, lovable, desirable, amorous — a picture of 
Lola which I could not put before this other woman 
equally brave and straight, who looked at me com- 
posedly out of her calm, blue eyes. 

My description resolved itself into a loutish catalogue. 
It is not painful to you to talk of her, Simon ?" 
Not at sill," said L "There are not many great- 
hearted women going about. It is my privilege to 
know two." 

"Am I the other?" 

"Who else?" 

"Fm glad you have the courage to class Madame 
Brandt and myself together." 

"Why?" I asked. 

"It proves beyond a doubt that you are honest with 
me. Now tell me about a few externals — things that 
don't matter — but help one to form an impression. Is 
she educated?" 

"From books, no; from observation, yes." 

"Her manners?" 

" Observation has educated them." 

"Accent?" 

" She is sufficiently polyglot to have none." 

" She dresses and talks and behaves generally like a lady ? " 

" She does," said I. 

"In what way then does she dififer from the women of 
our class?" 

"She is less schooled, less reticent, franker, more 
natural. What is on her tongue to say, she says." 

"Temper?" 

" I have never heard her say an angry word to or of 
a human creature. She has queer delicacies of feeling. 
For instance " 



SIMON THE JESTER 251 

I told her of Anastasius Papadopoulos's tawdry, gim- 
crack presents which Lola has suffered to remain in her 
drawing-room so as not to hurt the poor little wretch, 

"Thafs very touching," she said. "Where does she 
Uve?" 

'^ She has a flat in Cadogan Gardens." 

"Is she in London now?" 

"Yes." 

"I should very much like to know her," she said 
calmly. 

1 vow and declare again that the more straightforward 
and open-eyed, the less subtle, temperamental, and 
neurotic are women, the more are they baffling. I had 
wondered for some time whither the catechism tended, 
and now, with a sudden jerk, it stopped short at this 
most unexpected terminus. It was startling. I rose 
and mechanically placed my empty tea-cup on the tray 
by her side. 

The wish, my dear Eleanor," said I, quite formally, 
does great credit to your heart." 

There was a short pause, marking an automatic close 
of the subject. Deeply as I admired both women, I" 
shrank from the idea of their meeting. It seemed curiously 
indelicate, in view both of my former engagement to 
Eleanor and of Lola's frank avowal of her feelmgs towards 
me before what I shall always regard as my death. It is 
true that we had never alluded to it since my resurrec- 
tion; but what of that? Lola's feelings, I was sure, re- 
mained unaltered. It also flashed on me that, with all the 
goodwill in the world, Eleanor would not understand 
Lola. An interview would develop into a duel. I pic- 
tured it for a second, and my sudden fierce partisanship 
for Lola staggered me. Decidedly an acquaintance be- 
tween these two was preposterous. 

The silence was definite enough to mark a period, but 
not long enough to cause embarrassment. Eleanor 






252 SIMON THE JESTER 

commented on my present emplo)rment. I must find it 
good to get back to politics. 

"I find it just the contrary," said I, with a laugh. 
"My convictions, alwajrs lukewann, are now stone-cold. 
I don't say that the principles of the party are wrong. 
But they're wrong for me, which is all-important. If 
they are not right for me, what care I how right they 
be ? And as I don't believe in those of the other side, I'm 
going to give up politics altogether." • 

"What will you do?" 

"I don't know," I replied. "I honestly don't. But 
I have an insistent premonition that I shall soon find 
myself doing something utterly idiotic, which to me will 
be the most real thing in life." 

I had indeed awakened that morning with an ex- 
hilarating thrill of anticipation, comparable to that of 
the mountain climber who knows not what panorama 
of glory may be disclosed to his eyes when he reaches 
the siunmit. I had whistled in my bath — a most im- 
usual thing. 

Are you going to turn Socialist ?" 
Qui to sa? I'm willing to turn anythiAg alive and 
honest. It doesn't matter what a man professes so 
long as he professes it with all the faith of all his soul." 

I broke into a laugh, for the echo of my words rang 
comic in my ears. 

"Why do you laugh?" she asked. 

" Don't you think it funny to hear me talk like a two- 
penny Carlyle?" 

" Not a bit," she said seriously. 

"I can't undertake to talk like that always," I said 
wamingly. 

"I thought you said you were going to be serious." 

"So I am — but platitudinous — Heaven forbid!" 

The little clock on the mantelpiece struck six. Eleanor 
rose in alarm. 



(C 



SIMON THE JESTER 253 

"How the time has flown! I must be getting back. 
WeU?" 

Our eyes met. "WeU?"saidL 

" Are we ever to meet again ?" 

"It's for you to say." 

" No," she said. And then very distinctly, very deliber- 
ately, "It's for you." 

I understood. She made the offer simply, nobly, un- 
reservedly. My heart was filled with a great gratitude. 
She was so true, so loyal, so thorough. Why could I 
not take her at her word? I murmured: 

"I'll remember what you say." 

She put out her hand. "Good-bye!" 

"Good-bye and God bless you!" I said. 

I accompanied her to the front door, hailed a passing 
cab, and waited till she had driven off. My pulses 
throbbed. I was moved to the depths of me. Was there 
ever a sweeter, grander, more loyal woman? The three 
little words had changed the current of my being. 

I returned to take leave of Agatha. I found her in the 
drawing-room reading a novel. She twisted her head 
sideways and regarded me with a bird-like air of ciuiosity. 

"Eleanor gone?" 

Her tone jarred on me. I nodded and dropped into a 
chair. 

"Interview passed off satisfactorily?" 

"We were quite comfortable, thank you. The only 
drawback was the tea. Why a woman in your position 
can't give people China tea instead of that Ceylon syrup 
will be a mystery to me to my dying day." 

She rose in her wrath and shook me. 

"You're the most aggravating wretch on the earth!" 

"My dear Tom-Tit," said I gravely. "Remember 
the moral tale of Bluebeard." 

"Look here, Simon" — she planted herself in front 
of me — "Fm not a bit inquisitive. I don't in the 



^5* 



SIMON THE JESTER 



least want to know what passed between you and 
Eleanor. But what I would give my ears to imder- 
stand is how you can go through a two hours' conrersa- 
tion with the girl you were engaged to — a conversation 
which must have affected the lives of both of you — and 
then come up to me and talk drivel about China tea 
and Bluebeard." 

"Once on a time, my dear," said I, "I flattered my- 
self on being an artist in life. I am hiunbler now and 
acknowledge myself a wretched, bimgling amateur. But 
I still recognise the value of chiarosciux>." 

"You're hopeless," said Agatha, somewhat crossly. 
^ You get more flippant and cynical every day.** 



CHAPTER XX 

I WENT home to my solitary dmner, and afterwards took 
down a volume of Emerson and tried to read. I thought 
the cool and spacious philosopher might allay a certain 
fever in my blood. But he did nothing of the kind. He 
wrote for cool and spacious people like himself; not for 
corpses like me revivified suddenly with an overcharge of 
vital force. I pitched him — how much more truly com- 
panionable is a book than its author! — I pitched him 
across the room, and thrusting my hands in my pockets 
and stretching out my legs, stared in a certain wonder at 
myself. 

I, Simon de Gex, was in love; and, horribile diciul in 
love with two women at once. It was Oriental, Mor- 
monic, New Century, what you will; but there it was. 
I am ashamed to avow that if, at that moment, both 
women had appeared before me and said "Marry us," 
I should have — ^well, reflected seriously on the proposal. 
I had passed through curious enough experiences, Heaven 
knows, already; but none so baffling as this. The two 
women came alternately and knocked at my heart, and 
whispered m my ear their irrefutable claims to my love. 
I listened throbbingly to each, and to each I said, "I love 
you." 

I was in an extraordinary psychological predicament. 
Lola had remarked, "You are not quite alive even yet." 
I had come to complete life too suddenly. This was 
the result. I got up and paced the bird-cage, which 
the house-agents termed a reception-room, and won- 
dered whether I were going mad. It was not as if one 
woman represented the flesh and the other the spirit 

«55 



256 SIMON THE JESTER 

Then I might have seen the way to a dedsioiL But 
both had the large nature that comprises alL I could 
not exalt one in any way to the abasement of the other. 
Ail my inherited traditions, prejudices, predilections, 
all my training ranged me on the side of Eleanor. I 
was clamouring for the real. Was she not the incarna- 
tion of the real? Her very directness piqued me to a 
perverse and delicious obliquity. And I knew, as I 
knew when I parted from her months before, that it 
was only for me to awaken things that lay virginally 
dormant. On the other hand stood Lola, with her 
magnetic seduction, her rich atmosphere, her great itide 
simplicity of heart, holding out arms into which I longed 
to throw myself. 

It was monstrous, abnormal. I hated the abominable 
indelicacy of weighing one against the other, as I had 
hated the idea of their meeting. 

I paced my bird-cage until it shrank to the size of a 
rat-trap. Then I clapped on my hat and fled down into 
the streets. I jumped into the first cab I saw and bade 
the driver take me to Barbara's Building. Campion sud- 
denly occurred to me as the best antidote to the poison 
that had entered my blood. 

I found him alone, clearing from the table the remains 
of supper. In spite of his soul's hospitable instincts, he 
stared at me. 

"Why, what the ?" 

"Yes, I know. You're siuprised to see me bursting 
in on you like a wild animal I'm not going to do it 
every night, but this evening I claim a bit of oiu: old 
friendship." 

Claim it all, my dear de Gex!" he said cordially. 
What can I do for you?" 

It was characteristic of Campion to put his question in 
that form. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would 
have asked what was the matter with me. But Cam- 






SIMON THE JESTER 257 

pion, who all his life had given, wanted to know what 
be could do. 

"Tell me fairy tales of Lambeth and idylls of the 
Waterloo Bridge Road. Or light your pipe and talk to 
me of Barbara." 

He folded up the tablecloth and put it in the side- 
board drawer. 

"K it's elegant distraction you want," said he, "I 
can do better than that." He planted himself in front of 
me. " Would you like to do a night's real work ? " 

"Certamly,"saidL 

"A gentleman of my acquaintance named Judd is in 
the ramping stage of delirium tremens. He requires a 
couple of men to hold him down so as to prevent him from 
getting out of bed and smashing his furniture and his wife 
and things. I was going to relieve one of the fellows 
there now, so that he can get a few hours' sleep, and if 
you like to come and relieve the other, you'll be doing a 
good action. But I warn you it won't be funny." 

"I'm in a mood for anything," I said. 

"You'Ucome?" 

" Of course." 

"That's splendid!" he shouted. "I hardly thought 
you wei:e in earnest. .Wait till I telephone for some 
medicine to be sent up f rdm the dispensary. I promised 
to take it roimd with me." 

He telephoned instructions, and presently a porter 
brought in the medicine. Campion explained that it 
had been prescribed by the doctor attached to the institu- 
tion who was attendmg the case. 

"You must come and see the working of our surgery 
and dispensary!" he cried enthusiastically. "We charge 
those who can afford it sixpence for visit and medicine. 
Those who can't are provided, after inquiry, with coupons. 
We don't want to encourage the weU-to-do to get their 
medical advice gratis, or we wouldn't be able to cope with 

>7 



258 SIMON THE JESTER 

the really poor. We pay the doctor a fixed salary, and the 
fees go to the general fund of the Building, so it doesn't 
matter a hang to him whether a patient pays or not/' 

"You must be proud of all this, Campion?" I said. 

"In a way," he replied, lighting his pipe; "but it*s 
mainly a question of money — ^my poor old father's money 
which he worked for, not I." 

I renunded him that other sons had been known to 
put their poor old father's money to baser uses. 

" I suppose Barbara is more useful to the commimity 
than steam yachts or racing stables; but there, you see, I 
bate yachting because I'm always sea-sick, and I scarcely 
know which end of a horse you put the bridle on. Every 
man to his job. This is mine. I like it." 

"I wonder whether holding down people suffering 
from delirium tremens is my job," said I. "If so, Fm 
afraid I shan't like it." 

"If it's really your job," replied Campion, "you wilL 
You must. You can't help it. God made man so." 

It was only an hour or two later when, for the first 
time in my life, I came into practical touch with human 
misery, that I recognised the truth of Campion's perfervid 
optimism. No one could like our task that night in its 
outer essence. For a time it revolted me. The atmosphere 
of the close, dirty room, bedroom, kitchen, dining-room, 
sitting-room, bathroom, laundry — all in one, the home of 
man, wife and two children, caught me by the throat. It 
was sour. The physical contact with the flesh of the un- 
clean, gibbering, shivering, maniacal brute on the foul bed 
was imutterably repugnant to me. Now and again, dur- 
ing intervals of comparative calm, I was forced to put my 
bead out of the window to breathe the air of the street. 
Even that was tainted, for a fried-fish shop across the way 
and a public-house next door billowed forth their nause- 
ating odoiurs. After a while access to the window was denied 
A mattress and some rude coverings were stretched 



SIMON THE JESTER 259 

beneath it — ^the children's bed — on which we persuaded 
the helpless, dreary wife to lie down and try to rest. A 
neighbour had taken in the children for the night. The 
wife was a skinny, grey-faced, lined woman of six-and- 
twenty. In her attitude of hopeless incompetence she 
shed around her an atmosphere of unspeakable depres- 
sion. Although I could not get to the window, I was 
glad when she lay down and spared me the sight of her 
moving fecklessly about the room or weeping huddled 
up on a broken-backed wooden chair and looking more 
like a half-animated dish-clout than a woman. 

The poor wretch on the bed was a journeyman tailor 
who, when sober, could earn fair wages. The cry of the 
wife, before Campion awed her into comparative silence, 
was a monotonous upbraiding of her husband for bringing 
them down to this poverty. It seemed impossible to 
touch her intelligence and make her imderstand that 
no words from her or any one could reach his conscious- 
ness. His violence, his screams, his threats, the horrors 
of his fear left her unmoved. We were there to guard 
her from physical danger, and that to her was all that 
mattered. 

In the course of an hour or so the nausea left me. I 
felt braced by the grimness of the thing, and during the 
paroxysms I had no time to think of anything but the 
mechanical work in hand. It was all that Campion and 
I, both fairly able-bodied men, could do to keep the 
puny little tailor in his bed. Horrible shapes menaced 
him from which he fought madly to escape. He writhed 
and shrieked with terror. Once he caught my hand in his 
teeth and bit it, and Campion had some difficulty in re- 
laxing the wretch's jaw. Between the paroxysms Campion 
and I sat on the bed watching him, scarcely exchanging a 
word. The wife, poor creature, whimpered on her mat- 
tress. It was not a pleasant vigil. It lasted till the grey 
dawn crept in, pitilessly inten^ying the squalor of the 



'» 



26o SIMON THE JESTER 

room, and until the dawn was broadening into daylight. 
Then two of Campion's men from Barbara's Building 
arrived to relieve us. Before we went, however, the neigh- 
bour who had taken charge of the children came in to help 
the slatternly wife light a fire and make some tea. I have 
enjoyed few things more than the warm, bitter stu£F 
which I drank out of the broken mug in that strange and 
depressing company. 

I went out into the street with racked head and nerves 
and muscles. Campion kept his cloth cap in his hand, 
allowing the morning wind to ruffle his shaggy black hair, 
and drew a long breath. 

"I think the worst is over now. As soon as he can 
be moved, Fll get him down to the annexe at Broad- 
stairs. The sea air will pull him round." 
. "Isn't it rather hopeless?" I asked. 

He turned on me. "Nothing's hopeless. If you once 
start the hopeless game down here you'd better distribute 
cyanide of potassium instead of coals and groceries. I've 
made up my mind to get that man decent again, and, by 
George, I'm going to do it! Fancy those two weaklings 
producing healthy offspring. But they have. Two of the 
most intelligent kids in the district. If you hold up your 
hands and say it's awful to contemplate their upbringing 
you're speaking the blatant truth. It's the contemplation 
that's awful. But why contemplate when you can do 
something?" 

I admitted the justice of the remark. He went on: 

"Look at yourself now. If you had gone in with me 
last night and just stared at the poor devil howling with 
D.T. in that filthy place, you'd have come out sici and 
said it was awfuL Instead of that, you buckled to and 
worked and threw off everything save our common hmnan- 
ity, and have got interested in the Judds in spite of your- 
self. You'll go and see them again and do what you can 
for 'em, won't you?" 



SIMON THE JESTER 261 

I was not in a merry mood, but I laughed. Campion 
had read the intention that had vaguely formulated 
itself at the back of my mind. 

" Of course I will," I said. 

We walked on a few steps down the still silent, dis- 
heartening street without speaking. Then he tugged 
his beard, half halted, and glanced at me quickly. 

"See here," said he, "the more sensible people I can 
get to help us the better. Would you like me to hand 
you over the Judd family en bloc? " 

This was startling to the amateur philanthropist. But 
it is the way of all professionals to regard their own 
business as of absorbing interest to the outside world. The 
stockbroking mind cannot conceive a sane man indiffer- 
ent to the fluctuations of the money market, and to the 
professional cricketer the wide earth revolves aroimd a 
wicket. How in the world could I be fairy godfather to the 
Judd family? Campion took my competence for granted. 

"You may not understand exactly what I mean, my 
dear Campion," said I; "but I attribute the most im- 
holy disasters of my life to a ghastly attempt of mine to 
play Deputy Providence." 

"But who^s asking you to play Deputy Providence?" 
he shouted. "It's the very last idiot thing I want done. 
I want you to do certain definite practical work for that 
family under the experienced direction of the authorities 
at Barbara's Building. There, do you imderstand now?" 

"Very well," said I. "Te duce et auspice Barbara. 
I'll do anything you like." 

Thus it befeU that I imdertook to look after the moral, 
material, and spiritual welfare of the family of an alco- 
holic tailor by the name of Judd who dwelt in a vile 
slum in South Lambeth. My head was full of the pros- 
pect when I awoke at noon, for I had gone exhausted to 
sleep as soon as I reached home. If goodwill, backed 
by the experience of Barbara's Building, could do aught 



262 SIMON THE JESTER 

towards the alleviation of human misery/ 1 detamined 
that it should be done. And there was much misery to be 
alleviated in the Judd family. I had no clear notion of 
the means whereby I was to accomplish this; but I knew 
that it would be a philanthropic pursuit far different 
from my previous eumoirous wanderings about London 
when, with a mind conscious of well-doing, I distributed 
embarrassing five-pound notes to the poor and needy. 

I had known — ^what comfortable, well-fed gentleman 
does not ? — ^that within easy walking distance of his Lon- 
don home thousands of human beings Uve Uke the beasts 
that perish; but never before had I spent an intimate 
night in one of the foul dens where the living and perish- 
ing take place. The awful pity of it entered my soul. 

So deeply was I impressed with the responsibility of 
what I had undertaken, so giimly was I haunted by the 
sight of the pallid, howling travesty of a man and the 
squeezed-out, whimpering woman, that the memory of 
the conflicting emotions that had driven me to Campion 
the night before returned to me with a shock. 

" It strikes me," I murmured, as I shaved, " that I am 
living very intensely indeed. Here am I in love with 
two women at once, and almost hysterically enthusiastic 
over a delirious tailor." Then I cut my cheek and 
murmured no more, imtil the operation was concluded. 

I had arranged to accompany Lola that afternoon to 
the Zoological Gardens. This was a favourite resort of 
hers. She was on intimate terms with keepers and animals, 
and her curious magnetism allowed her to play such 
tricks with Uons and tigers and other ferocious beieists as 
made my blood nm cold. As for the bears, they greeted 
her approach with shrieking demonstrations of affection. 
On such occasions I felt the same curious physical anti- 
pathy as I did when she had dominated Anastasius's ill- 
condiitioned cat. She seemed to enter another sphere of 
being in which neither I nor anything human had a place. 



SIMON THE JESTER 263 

A^^th some such dim thoughts in my head, I reached 
her door in Cadogan Gaidens. The sight of her 
electric brougham that stood waiting switched my thoughts 
into another groove, but one nmning oddly parallel. 
Electric broughams also carried her out of my 
sphere, I had humbly performed the journey thither 
in an omnibus. 

She received me in her big, expansive way. 

"Lord! How good it is to see you. I was getting 
the — ^I was going to say *the blind hump' — but you don't 
Uke it. I was going to turn crazy and bite the fiuniture." 

"Why?" I asked with masculine directness. 

"I've been trying to educate myself — to read poetry. 
Look here" — she caught a small brown-covered octavo 
volume from the table. "It's Browning. *Sordello' is 
the name of the poem. I can't make head or tail of it. 
It proved to me that it was no use. If I couldn't imder- 
stand poetry, I couldn't understand anything. It was no 
good trying to educate myself. I gave it up. And then I 
got what you don't like me to call the hiunp." 

"You dear Lola!" I cried, laughing. "I don't believe 
any one has ever made head or tail out of 'Sordello.' 
There once was a man who said there were only two in- 
telligible lines in the poem — the first and the last — and 
that both were lies. * Who wiD, may hear Sordello's story 
told,' and ' Who would, has heard Sordello's story tolA' 
Don't worry about not imderstanding it." 
Don't you?" 
Not a bit," said I. 

"That's a comfort," she said, with a generous sigh of 
relief. "How well you're looking!" she cried suddenly. 
"You're a dififerent man. What have you been doing to 
yourself?** 

" I've grown quite alive." 

" Goodl Delightful! So am I. Quite alive now, thank 
you.** 






264 SIMON THE JESTER 

She looked it, in spite of the black outdoor costume. 
But there was a dash of white at her throat and some 
white lilies of the valley in her bosom, and a white feather 
in her great black hat poised with a Gainsborough 
swagger on the mass of her bronze hair. 

"It's the spring," she added. 

"Yes," said I, "it's the spring." 

She approached me and brushed a few specks of dust 
from my shoulder. 

"You want a new suit of clothes, Simon." 

"Dear me!" said I, glancing hastily over the blue 
serge suit in which I had loimged at Mustaj^ Supd- 
rieur. "I suppose I do." 

It occiured to me that my wardrobe generally needed 
replenishing. I had been unaccustomed to think of 
these things, the excellent Rogers and his predecessors 
having done most of the thinking for me. 

" rU go to Poole's at once," said I. 

And then it struck me, to my whimsical dismay, that 
in the present precarious state of my finances, espedaUy 
in view of my decision to abandon political journalism 
in favour of I knew not what occupation, I could not 
afford to order clothes largely from a fashionable tailor. 

"I shouldn't have mentioned it," said Lola apolo- 
getically, " but you're always so spick and span." 

"And now I'm getting shabby!" 

I threw back my head and laughed at the new and 
comical conception of Simon de Gex down at heeL 

"Oh, not shabby!" echoed Lola. 

"Yes, my dear," I said. "The days of purple and fine 
linen are vorbei. You'll have to put up with me in a 
threadbare coat and frayed cuffs and ragged hems to my 
trousers." 

Lola declared that I was talking rubbish. 

"Not quite such rubbish as you may think, my dear. 
Shall you mind?" 



SIMON THE JESTER 265 

"It would break my heart. But why do you talk so? 
You can't be — as poor — ^as that ? " 

Her face manifested such tragic concern that I laughed. 
Besides, the idea of personal poverty amused me. When 
I gave up my political work I should only have what I had 
saved from the wreck — some two hundred a year — to 
support me imtil I should find some other means of liveli- 
hood. It was enough to keep me from starvation, and the 
little economies I had begun to practise afforded me en- 
joyment. On the other hand, how folks regulated their 
balance-sheets so as to live on two hundred a year I had 
but a dim notion. In the course of our walk from Bar- 
bara's Building to the Judds the night before I had asked 
Campion. He had laughed somewhat grimly. 

"I don't know. I don't run an asylum for spend- 
thrift plutocrats; but if you want to see how people live 
and bring up large families on fifteen shillings a week, I 
can show you heaps of examples." 

This I felt would, in itself, be knowledge of the deepest 
interest; but it would in no way aid me to solve my own 
economic difficulty. I was alwa)rs being brought up sud- 
denly against the problem in some form or another, and, 
as I say, it caused me considerable amusement. 

"I shall go on happily enough," said I, reassur- 
ingly. "In the meantime, let us go and see the lions 
and tigers." 

We started. The electric brougham glided along 
comfortably through the simlit streets. A feeling of 
physical and spiritual content stole over me. Our hands 
met and lingered a long time in a s}anpathetic dasp. 
Whatever fortune held in store for me here at least I had an 
inalienable possession. For some time we said nothing, 
and when our eyes met she smiled. I think she had never 
felt my heart so near to hers. At last we broke the silence 
and talked of ordinary things. I told her of my vigil 
overnight and my undertaking to look after the Judds. 



266 SIMON THE JESTER 

She listened with great interest. When I had finished my 
tale, she said almost passionately: 

" Oh, I wish I could do something like that!" 

"You?" 

"Why not? I came from those people. My grandfather 
swept the cages in Jamrach's down by the docks. He 
died of drink. He used to live in one horrible, squalid 
room near by. I remember my father taking me to see 
him when I was a little girl — ^we ourselves weren't very 
much better off at that time. Fve been through it," she 
shivered. "I know what that awful poverty is. Some- 
times it seems immoral of me to live luxiuiously as I do 
now without doing a hand's turn to help." 

" Chacun i son miiier^ my dear," said I. " There's no 
need to reproach yourself." 

"But I think it might be my mHier^^* she replied 
earnestly, " if only I could leam it." 

" Why haven't you tried, then ? " 

"I've been lazy and the opportunity hasn't come my 
way." 

"I'll introduce you to Campion," I said, "and doubtless 
he'll be able to find something for you to do. He has 
made a science of the matter. I'll take you down to 
see him." 

"Will you?" 

"Certainly," said I. There was a pause. Then an 
idea struck me. " I wonder, my dear Lola, whether you 
could apply that curious power you have over savage 
animals to the taming of the more brutal of hmnans." 

" I wonder," she said thoughtfully. 

"I should like to see you seize a drunken coster- 
monger in the act of jumping on his wife by the scruS 
of the neck, and reduce him to such pulp that he sat up 
on his tail and begged." 

"Oh, Simon!" she exclaimed reproachfully. •*! quite 
thought you were serious." 



SIMON THE JESTER 267 

"So I am, my dear," I returned quickly, "as serious 
as I can be." 

She laughed. "Do you remember the first day you 
came to see me? You said that I could train any human 
bear to dance to whatever tune I pleased. I wonder 
if the same thought was at the back of yoiu: head." 

"It wasn't," said I. "It was a bad and villainous 
thought. I came under the impression that you were 
a dangerous seductress." 

She turned her dark golden eyes on me and there was 
a touch of mockery in their tenderness. 

"And rm not?" 

Oh, that spring day, that delicious tingle in the air, 
that laughing impertinence of the budding trees in the 
park through which we were then driving, that envelop- 
ing sense of fragrance and the nearness and the deamess 
of her I Oh, that overcharge of vitality! I leaned my 
head to hers so that my lips nearly touched her ear. 
My voice shook. 

"You're a seductress and a witch and a sorceress and 
an enchantress." 

The blood rose to her dark face. She half closed her eyes. 

"What else am I?" she murmured. 

But, alas! I had not time to answer, for the brougham 
stopped at the gates of the Zoological Gardens. We 
both awakened from our foolishness. My hand was on 
the door-handle when she checked me. 

"What's the good of a mind if you can't change it? 
I don't feel in a mood for wild beasts to-day, and I know 
you don't care to see me fooling about with them. I 
would much rather sit quiet and talk to you." 

With a woman who wants to sacrifice herself there is 
no disputing. Besides, I had no desire to dispute. I 
acquiesced. We agreed to continue our drive. 

"We'll go round by Hampstead Heath," she said to 
the chauffeur. As soon as we were in motion again, she 



268 SIMON THE JESTER 

drew ever so little nearer and said, in her lowest, richest 
notes, and with a coquetry that was bewildering on 
account of its frankness: 

"What were we talking of before we pulled up?" 

"I don't know what we were talking of," I said, "but 
we seem to have trodden on the fringe of a fairy-tale." 

"Can't we tread on it again?" She laughed happily. 

"You have only to cast the spell of yoiu: witchery 
over me again." 

She drew yet a little nearer and whispered: "Fm 
trying to do it as hard as I can." 

An adorable softness came into her eyes, and her hand 
instinctively closed roimd mine in its boneless clasp. 
The long pent-up longing of the woman vibrated from 
her in waves that shook me to my soul. My senses 
swam. Her face quivered glorious before me in a black 
world. Her lips were parted. Careless of all the e3res 
in all the houses in the Avenue Road, St. John's Wood, 
and in the head of a telegraph boy whom I only noticed 
afterwards, I kissed her on the lips. 

All the fulness and strength of life danced through 
my veins. 

"I told you I was quite alive!" I said with idiotic 
exultation. 

She closed her eyes and leaned back. "Why did you 
do that?" she miumured. 

" Because I love you," said I. " It has come at last." 

Where we drove I have no recollection. Presumably 
an impression of green rolling plain with soft uplands in 
the distance signi^ed that we passed along Hampstead 
Heath; the wide thoroughfare with villa residences on 
either side may have been Kilbum ICgh Road; the 
flourishing, busy, noisy suburb may have been Kilbum: 
the street leading thence to the Marble Arch may have 
been Maida Vale. To me they were paths in Dream- 
land. We spoke but little and what we did say was in 



SIMON THE JESTER 269 

the simple, commonplace language which all men use in 
the big crises of life. 

There was no doubt now of my choice. I loved her. 
Love had come to me at last. That was all I knew at 
that hour and all I cared to know. 

Lola was the first to awake from Dreamland. She 
shivered. I asked her whether she felt cold. 

"No. I can't believe that you love me. I can't. 
I can't." 

I smiled in a masterful way. "I can soon show you 
that I do." 

She shook her head. " I'm afraid, Simon, I'm afraid." 

"What of?" 

"Myself." 

"Why?" 

"I can't tell you. I can't explain. I don't know how 
to. I've been wrong — horribly wrong. I'm ashamed." 

She gripped her hands together and looked down at 
them. I bent forward so as to see her face, which was 
full of pain. 

"But, dearest of all women," I cried, "what in the 
world have you to be ashamed of?" 

She paused, moistened her lips with her tongue, and 
then broke out: 

"I'll tell you. A decent lady like your Eleanor 
Favershtoi wouldn't tell. But I can't keep these things 
in. Didn't you begin by saying I was a seductress? 
No, no, let me talk. Didn't you say I could make 
a man do what I wanted? Well, I wanted you to kiss 
me. And now you've done it, you think you love me; 
but you don't, you can't." 

"You're talking the wickedest nonsense that ever 
proceeded out of the lips of a loving woman," I said 
aghast. "I repeat in the most solenm way that I love 
you with all my heart." 

"In contunon decency you couldn't say otherwise." 



270 SIMON THE JESTER 

Again I saw the futility of disputation. I put my 
hand on hers. 

"Time will show, dear. At any rate, we have had 
our hour of fairyland." 

"I wish we hadn't," she said. "Don't you see it 
was only my sorcery, as you call it, that took us there? 
I meant us to go." 

At last we reached Cadogan Gardens. I descended 
and handed her out, and we entered the hall of the 
mansions. The porter stood with the lift-door open. 

"I'm coming up to knock all this foolishness out 
of your head." 

"No, don't, please, for Heaven's sake!" she whis- 
pered imploringly. "I must be alone — ^to think it all 
out. It's only because I love you so. And don't ccxne 
to see me for a day or two — say two days. This is 
Wednesday. Come on Friday. You think it over 
as well. And if it's really true — ^I'll know then — ^when 
you come. Good-bye, dear. Make Gray drive you 
wherever you want to go." 

She wrung my hand, turned and entered the lift. 
The gates swimg to and she moimted out of sight. I 
went slowly back to the brougham, and gave the chauf- 
feur the address of my eerie. He touched his hat. 
I got in and we drove ofif. And then, for the first time, 
it struck me that an about-to-be-shabby gentleman 
with a beggarly two himdred a year, ought not, in spite 
of his quarterings, to be contemplating marriage with 
a wealthy woman who kept an electric brougham. The 
thought hit me like a stone in the midriff. 

What on earth was to be done? My pride rose up 
like the deux ex machina in the melodrama and forbade 
the banns. To live on Lola's money— the idea was 
intolerable. Equally intolerable was the idea of earn- 
ing an income by means against the honesty of which 
my soul clamoured aloud. 



SIMON THE JESTER 



271 



''Good God!" I cried. "Is life, now I've got to it, 
nothing but an infinite series of dilemmas? No sooner 
am I off one than I'm on another. No sooner do I 
find that Lola and not Eleanor Faversham is the woman 
sent down by Heaven to be my mate than I realise the 
same old dilemma — ^Lola on one horn and Eleanor 
replaced on the other by Pride and Honour and all 
sorts of capital-lettered considerations. Life is the 
very Deuce," said I, with a wry appreciation of the 
subtlety of language. 
Why did Lola say: "Your Eleanor Faversham?" 
I had enough to think over for the rest of the evening. 
But I slept peacefully. Light loves had come and gone 
in the days past; but now for the first time love that 
was not light had come into my life. 



CHAPTER XXI 

"The Lord will find a way out of the dilemma," said I 
confidently to myself as I neared Cadogan Gardens two 
days after the revelatory drive. "Lola is in love with 
me and I am in love with Lola, and there is nothing 
to keep us apart but my pride over a matter of a few 
ha' -pence." I felt peculiarly jaunty. I had just posted to 
Finch the last of the articles I had agreed to write 
for his reactionary review, and only a couple of articles 
for another journal remained to be written in order to 
complete my literary engagements. Soon I should be 
out of the House of Bondage in which I had been a 
slave, at first willingly and now rebelliously, from my 
cradle. The great wide world with its infinite oppor- 
tunities for development received my liberated spirit. 
I had broken the shackles of caste. I had thrown off 
the perfumed garments of epicureanism, the vesting of 
my servitude. My emotions, once stifled in the ener- 
vating atmosphere, now awoke fresh and strong in 
the free air. I was elemental — the man wanting the 
woman; and I was happy because I knew I was going 
to get her. Such must be the state of being of a dragon- 
fly on a sunny day. And — shall I confess it? — I had 
obeyed the dragon-fly's instinct and attired myself in 
the most resplendent raiment in my wardrobe. My 
morning coat was still irreproachable, my patent leather 
boots still gleamed, and having had some business in 
Piccadilly I had stepped into my hatter's and emerged 
with my silk hat newly ironed. I positively strutted 
along the pavement. 

For two days I had not seen her or heard from her or 
written to her. I had scrupulously respected her wishes, 

273 



SIMON THE JESTER 273 

foolish though they were. Now I was on my way to 
convince her that my love was not a moment's surge of 
the blood on a spring afternoon. I would take her into 
my arms at once, after the way of men, and she, after 
the way of women, would yield adorably. I had no 
doubt of it. I tasted in anticipation the bliss of that 
first embrace, as if I had never kissed a woman in my 
life. And, indeed, what woman had I kissed with the 
passion that now ran through my veins? In that 
embrace all the ghosts of the past women would be laid 
for ever and a big and lusty future would make glorious 
beginning. "By Heaven," I cried, almost articulately, 
"with the splendour of the world at my conmiand why 
should I not write plays, novels, poems, rhapsodies, so as 
to tell the blind, groping, loveless people what it is like? 

"Take me up to Madame Brandt!" said I to the lift- 
porter. "Madame Brandt is not in town, sir," said 
the man. 

I looked at him open-mouthed. "Not in town?" 

"I think she has gone abroad, sir. She left with a 
lot of luggage yesterday, and her maid, and now the flat 
is shut up." 

"Impossible!" I cried aghast. 

The porter smiled. "I can only tell you what has 
happened, sir." 

"Where has she gone to?" 

"I couldn't say, sir." 

"Her letters? Has she left no address to which 
they are to be forwarded?" 

"Not with me, sir." 

" Did she say when she was coming back ? " 

"No, sir. But she dismissed her cook with a month's 
wages, so it seems as though she was gone for a good spell." 

"What time yesterday did she leave?" 

"After limch. The cabman was to drive her to 
Victoria — ^London, Chatham and Dover Railway." 

x8 



274 SIMON THE JESTER 

"That looks like the 2.20 to Paris," said L 

But the lift-porter knew nothing of this. He had 
given me all the information in his power. I thanked 
him and went out into the simshine a blinking, dazed, 
bewildered and piteously crushed man. 

She had gone, without drum or trumpet, maid and 
baggage and all, having dismissed her cook and shut up 
the flat. It was incredible. I wandered aimlessly about 
Chelsea trying to make up my mind what to do. Should 
I go to Paris and bring her back by main force? But 
how did I know that she had gone to Paris? And if 
she was there how could I discover her address? Sud- 
denly an idea struck me. She would not have left 
Quast and the cattery in the same imceremonious fashion 
to get on as best they might. She would have given 
Quast money and directions. At any rate, he would 
know more than the lift-porter of the mansions. I 
decided to go to him forthwith. 

By means of trains and omnibuses I arrived at the 
house in the little street off Rosebery Avenue, Clerken- 
well, where the maker of gymnastic appliances had his 
being. I knocked at the door. A grubby man ap- 
peared. I inquired for Quast. 

Quast had left that morning in a van, taking his 
cages of cats with him. He had gone abroad and was 
never coming back again, not if he knew it, said the 
grubby man. The cats were poison and Quast was a 
low-down foreigner, and it would cost him a year's rent 
to put the place in order again. Whereupon he slammed 
the door in my face and left me disconsolate on the 
doorstep. 

The only other person with whom I knew Lola to be 
on friendly terms was Sir Joshua Oldfield. I entered 
the first public telephone office I came to and rang him 
up. He had not seen Lola for a week, and had heard 
Bothing from her relating to her sudden departure. 



SIMON THE JESTER 275 

I went sadly home to my bird-cage in Victoria Street, 
feeling that now at last the abomination of desolation 
had overspread my life. 

Why had she gone? What was the meaning of it? 
Why not a line of explanation? And the simultaneous 
disappearance of Quast and the cats — ^what did that 
betoken? Had she been summoned, for any reason, 
to the Maison de Sant^, where Anastasius Papadopoulos 
was incarcerated? If so, why this secrecy? Why 
should Lola of all people side with Destiny and make a 
greater Tom Fool of me than ever? This could be no 
other than the final jest. 

I do not care to remember what I did and said in the 
privacy of my little room. There are things a man 
locks away even from himself. 

I was in the midst of my misery when the bell of my 
tiny fiat rang. I opened the door and foimd my sister 
Agatha smiling on the threshold. 

"Hallo!" said I, gazing at her stupidly. 

" You're not effusive in your welcome, my dear Simon," 
she remarked. "Won't you ask me to come in?" 

" By all means," said I. " Come in ! " 

She entered and looked round my little sitting-room. 
"What a pill-box in the sky! I had no idea it was 
as tiny as this. I think I shall call you Saint Simon 
Stylites." 

I was in no mood for Agatha. I bowed ironically and 
inquired to what I owed the honour of the visit. 

"I want you to do me a favour — a great favour. Fm 
djdng to see the new dances at the Palace Theatre. 
They say they dance on everything except their feet. 
I've got a box. Tom promised to take me. Now he 
finds he can't. I've telephoned all over the place for 
something uncompromising in or out of trousers to 
accompany me and I can't get hold of anybody. So 
I've come to you." 



276 SIMON THE JESTER 

"Tm vastly flattered ! " said I. 

She dismissed my sarcasm with bird-iike imj^atience. 

"Don't be silly. If I had thought you would like it, 
I should have come to you first. I didn't want to 
bore you. But I did think you would pull me out of a 
hole." 

"What's the hole?" I asked. 

"I've paid for a box and I can't go by myself. How 
can I ? Do take me, there's a dear." 

"Fm afraid I'm too dull for haimts of merriment," 
said I. 

She regarded me reproachfully. 

"It isn't often I ask you to put yourself out for me. 
The last time was when I asked you to be baby's god- 
father. And a pretty godfather you've been. I bet 
you anything you don't remember the name." 

"I do," said I. 

"What's it then?" 

"It's — ^it's " I snapped my fingers. The brat's 

name had for the moment gone out of my distracted 
head. She broke into a laugh and ran her arm through 
mine. 

"Dorcas." 

"Yes, of course — Dorcas. I was going to say so." 

"Then you were going to say wrong, for it's Dorothy. 
Now you must come — ^for the sake of penance." 

"FU do anything you please!" I cried in desperation, 
"so long as you'll not talk to me of my own affairs and 
¥dll let me sit as glum as ever I choose." 

Then for the first time she manifested some interest 
in my mood. She put her head to one side and scanned 
my face narrowly. 

"What's the matter, Simon?" 

"I've absorbed too much life the last few days," 
said I, ** and now I've got indigestion." 

"I'm sorry, dear old boy, whatever it is," she said 



SIMON THE JESTER 277 

affectionately. "Come round and dine at 7.30, and 
I promise not to worry you." 

What could I do? I accepted. The alternative to 
procuring Agatha an evening's amusement was pacing 
up and down my bird-cage and beating my wings (fig- 
uratively) and perhaps my head (literally) against 
the bars. 

"It's awfully sweet of you," said Agatha. "Now 
I'll rush home and dress." 

I accompanied her down the lift to the front door, 
and attended her to her carriage. 

"I'll do you a good turn some day, dear," she said 
as she drove off. 

I rather flatter myself that Agatha had no reason to 
complain of my dulness at dinner. In my converse 
with her I was faced by various alternatives. I might 
lay bare my heart, tell her of my love for Lola and my 
bewildered despair at her desertion; this I knew she 
would no more understand than if I had proclaimed a 
mad passion for a young lady who had waited on me 
at a tea-shop, or for a cassowary at the Zoo; even the 
best and most affectionate of sisters have their sympa- 
thetic limitations. I might have maintained a mysteri- 
ous and B)rronic gloom; this would have been sheer bad 
manners. I might have attributed my lack of spon- 
taneous gaiety to toothache or stomach-ache; this 
would have aroused sisterly and matronly sympathies, 
and I should have had the devil's own job to escape 
from the house impoisoned by the nostrums that lurk 
in the medicine chest of every well-conducted family. 
Agatha, I knew, had a peculiarly Borgiaesque equip- 
ment. Lastly, there was the worldly device, which I 
adopted, of dissimulating the furnace of my affliction 
beneath a smiling exterior. Agatha, therefore, found 
me an entertaining guest and drove me to the Palace 
Theatre in high good humour. 



278 SIMON THE JESTER 

There, however, I could resign my rdle of entert^dner 
in favour of the professionals on the stage. I sat back 
in my ccMner of the box and gave myself up to my ha- 
rassing concerns. Young ladies warbled, comic acrobats 
squirted siphons at each other and kicked each other 
in the stomach, jugglers threw plates and brass balls 
with dizz)n[ng skill, the famous dancers gyrated pyio- 
technicaUy, the house applauded with delight, Agatha 
laughed and chuckled and clapped her hands and I 
remained silent, unnoticed and unnotidng in my re- 
flective comer, longing for the foolery to end. Where 
was Lola? Why had she forsaken me? What remedy, 
in the fiend's name, was there for this heart torture 
within me? The most excruciating agonies of the lit- 
tle pain inside were child's play to this. I bit my lips 
so as not to groan aloud and contorted my features 
into the semblance of a smile. 

During a momentary interval there came a knock at 
the box door. I said, "Come in!" The door opened, 
and there, to my utter amazement, stood Dale Kyn- 
nersley — Dale, sleek, alert, smiling, attired in the very 
latest nicety of evening dress aflFected by contemporary 
youth — Dale such as I knew and loved but six months ago. 

He came forward to Agatha, who was little less as- 
tounded than myself. 

" How d'ye do. Lady Durrell ? Fm in the stalls with 
Harry Essendale. I tried to catch your eye, but 
couldn't. So I thought I'd come up." He turned to 
me with frank outstretched hand, "How do, Simon?" 

I grasped his hand and murmured something un- 
intelligible. The thing was so extraordinary, so un- 
expected that my wits went wandering. Date carried 
off the situation lightly. It was he who was the man of 
the world, and I the imresourceful stumbler. 

"He's looking ripping, isn't he, Lady Durrell? I 
met old Oldfield the other day, and he was raving about 



SIMON THE JESTER 279 

your case. The thing has never been done before. Says 
they're going mad over your chap in Paris — ^they've 
given him medals and wreaths and decorations till he 
goes about like a prize bull at a fair. By Jove, it's 
good to see you again." 

"You might have taken an earlier opportunity," 
Agatha remarked with some acidity. 

"So I might," retorted Dale blandly; "but when 
a man's a bom ass it takes him some time to cultivate 
sense! I've been wanting to see you for a long time, 
Simon — and to-night I just couldn't resist it. You 
don't want to kick me out ? " 

"Heaven forbid," said I, somewhat brokenly, for the 
welcome sight of his face and the sound of his voice 
aroused emotions which even now I do not care to 
analyse. "It was generous of you to come up." 

He coloured. "Rot!" said he, in his breezy way. 
"Hallol The curtain's going up. What's the next item? 
Oh, those fool dogs!" 

"I adore performing dogs!" said Agatha, looking 
toward the stage. 

He turned to me. "Do you?" 

The last thing on earth I desired to behold at that 
moment was a performing animal. My sensitiveness 
led me to suspect a quizzical look in Dale's eye. For- 
tunately, he did not wait for my aaswer, but went on 
in a boyish attempt to appease Agatha. 

"I don't despise them, you know. Lady Durrell, but 
I've seen them twice before. They're really rather 
good. There's a football match at the end which is 
quite exciting." 

"Oh, the beauties!" cried Agatha over her shoulder 
as the dogs trotted on to the stage. I nodded an ac- 
knowledgment of the remark, and she plunged into rapt 
contemplation of the act. Dale and I stood at the back 
of the box. Suddenly he whispered: 



28o SIMON THE JESTER 

"Come out into the corridor. I've something to say 
to you." 

" Certainly," said I, and followed him out of the box. 

He thrust his hands into his pockets and looked at 
me with the defiant and you-be-damned air of the young 
Briton who was about to conunit a gracious action. I 
knew what he was going to say. I could tell by his 
manner. I dreaded it, and yet I loved him for it. 

"Why say anything, my dear boy ? " I asked. " You 
want to be friends with me again, and God knows I 
want to be friends again with you. Why talk?" 

"I've got to get it oflF my chest," said he, in his so 
familiar vernacular. "I want to tell you that Fve been 
every end of a silly ass and I want you to forgive me." 

I vow I have never felt so miserably guilty towards 
any human being as I did at that moment. I have 
never felt such a smug-faced hsrpocrite. It was a hu- 
miliating position. I had inflicted on him a most grievous 
wrong, and here he was pleading for forgiveness. I could 
not pronounce the words of pardon. He misinterpreted 
my silence. 

"I know Fve behaved rottenly to you since you've 
been back, but the first step's always so difficult. You 
mustn't bear a grudge against mfe." 

"My dear boyl" I cried, my hand on his shoulder, 
touched to the heart by his simple generosity, "don't 
let us talk of grudges and forgiveness. All I want to 
know is whether you're contented?" 

"Contented?" he cried. "I should just think I 
am. I'm the happiest ass that doesn't eat thistles!" 

"Explain yourself, my dear Dale," said I, relapsing 
into my old manner. 

"I'm going to marry Maisie EUerton." 

I took him by the arm and dragged him iiKside the 
box. 

"Agatha," said I, "leave those confounded dogs for 



SIMON THE JESTER 281 

a moment and attend to serious matters. This young 
man has not come up to see either of us, but to ob- 
tain our congratulations. He's going to marry Mabie 
Ellerton." 

"Tell me all about it," said Agatha intensely inter- 
ested. 

A load of responsibility rolled off my shoulders like 
Christian's pack. I looked at the dog football match 
with the interest of a Shefl5eld puddler at a Cup-tie, and 
clapped my hands. 

An hour or so later after we had seen Agatha home, 
and Dale had incidentally chucked Lord Essendale 
(the phrase is his own), we were sitting over whisky 
and soda and cigars in my Victoria Street flat. The 
ingenuousness of youth had insisted on this prolongation 
of our meeting. He had a thousand things to tell me. 
They chiefly consisted in a reiteration of the statement 
that he had been a rampant and unimagined silly ass, 
and that Maisie, who knew the whole lunatic story, was 
a brick, and a million times too good for him. When 
he entered my humble lodging he looked round in a 
bewildered manner. 

Why on earth are you living in this mouse-trap?" 
Agatha calls it a pill-box. I call it a bird-cage. I live 
here, my dear boy, because it is the utmost I can afford." 

"Rot!" said he; "Fve been your private secretary 
and know what your income is." 

I sighed heavily. I shall have to get a leaflet printed 
setting out the causes that led to my change of fortune. 
Then I can hand it to such of my friends as manifest 
surprise. 

liideed, I had grown so used to the story of my 
lamentable pursuit of the eumoirous that I rattled it off 
mechanically after the manner of the sturdy beggar telling 
his mendacious tale of undeserved misfortune. To 
Dale, however, it was fresh. He listened to it open- 



« 



282 SIMON THE JESTER 

eyed. When I had concluded, he brought his hand 
down on the arm of the chair. 

"By Jove, you're splendid! I always said you were. 
Just splendid!" 

He gulped down half a tumbler of whisky and soda to 
hide l:ds feelings. 

"And you've been doing all this while Fve been 
making a howling fool of myself! Look here, Simon, 
you were right all along the line — ^from the very first 
when you tackled me about Lola. Do you remember?" 

"Why refer to it?" I asked. 

"I must!" he burst in quickly. "Fve been lon^g 
to put myself square with you. By the way, where is 
Lola?" 

" I don't know," said I with grim truthfulness. 

"Don't know? Has she vanished?" 

"Yk," said L 

"That's the end of it, I suppose. Poor Lola! She 
was an awfully good sort, you know!" said Dale, "and 
I won't deny I was hit. That's when I came such a 
cropper. But [I realise now how right you were. I 
was just caught by the senses, nothing else; and when 
she wrote to say it was all oflF between us my van- 
ity suffered — suffered damnably, old chap. I lost the 
election through it. Didn't attend to business. That 
brought me to my senses. Then Essendale took me 
away yachting, and I had a quiet time to think; and 
after that I somehow took to seeing more of Maisie. 
You know how things happen. And I'm joUy grateful 
to you, old chap. You've saved me from God knows 
what complications! After all, good sort as Lola is, ifs 
rot for a man to go outside his own class, isn't it ? " 

"It depends upon the man — and also the woman," 
said I, beginning to derive peculiar torture from the 
conversation. 

Dale shook his wise head. "It never comes off," 



SIMON THE JESTER 283 

said he. After a pause he laughed aloud. "Don't jou 
remember the lecture you gave me? My word, you 
did talk! You produced a string of ghastly instances 
where the experiment had failed. Let me see, who 
was there? Paget, Merridew, BuUen. Ha! Ha! No, 
I'm well out of it, old chap — ^thanks to you." 

"If any good has come out of this sorry business," 
said I gravely, "I'm only too grateful to Providence." 

He caught the seriousness of my tone. 

"I didn't want to touch on that side of it," he said 
awkwardly. "I know what an infernal time you had! 
It must have been Gehenna. I realise now that it was 
on my account, and so I can never do enough to show 
my gratitude." 

He finished his glass of whisky and walked about the 
tiny room. 

"What has always licked me," he said at length, 
"is why she never told me she was married. It's so 
curious, for she was as straight as they make 'em. It's 
devilish odd!" 

" Yes," I assented wearily, for every word of this talk 
was a new pain. "Devilish odd!" 

"I suppose it's a question of class again." 

" Or sex," said I. 

"What has sex to do with being straight?" 

" Everything," said I. 

"Rot!" said Dale. 

I sighed. "I wish your dialectical vocabulary were 
not so limited." 

He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. 

"Still the same old Simon. It does my heart good 
to hear you. May I have another whisky?" 

I took advantage of this break to change the con- 
versation. He had told me nothing of his own affairs 
save that he was engaged to Maisie Ellerton. 

"Heavens!" cried he. "Isn't that enough?" 



284 SIMON THE JESTER 

"An engagement isn't an occupation." 

"Isn't it, by jjove?" He laughed boyishly. "I 
manage, however, to squeeze in a bit of work now and 
then. The mater has always got plenty on hand for me, 
and I do things for Raggles. He has been awfully 
decent. The first time I met him or any of the chiefs 
after the election I was in a blue funk. But no one 
seemed to blame me; they all said they were sorry; and 
now Raggles is looking out for a constituency for me to 
nurse for the next General Election. Then things will 
hum, I promise you!" 

He waved his cigar with the air of a young paladin 
about to conquer the world. In spite of my own de- 
pression, I could not help smiling with gladness at the 
sight of him. With his extravagantly cut waistcoat, his 
elaborately exquisite white tie, his perfectly fitting evening 
clothes, with his supple ease of body, his charming 
manner, the preposterous fellow made as gallant a show 
as any ruffling blade in powder and red-heeled shoes. 
He had acquired, too, an extra touch of manhood since 
I had seen him last. I felt proud of him, conscious that 
to the making of him I had to some small degree con- 
tributed. 

"You must come out and limch with Maisie and 
me one day this week," said he. "She would love to 
see you." 

"Wait till you're married," said I, "and then we'll 
consider it. At present Maisie is under the social do- 
minion of her parents." 

"Well— what of it?" 

" Just that," said I. 

Then the truth dawned on him. He grew exdted and 
said it was damnable. He wasn't going to stand by and 
see people believe a lot of scandalous lies about me. He 
had no idea people had given me the cold shoulder. He 
would jolly well (such were his words) take a something 



SIMON THE JESTER 285 

(I forget the adjective) megaphone and trumpet about 
society what a splendid fellow I was. 

"I'll tell everybody the whole silly-ass story about 
myself from beginning to end," he declared. 

I checked him. "You're very generous, my dear 
boy," said I, "but you'll do me a favour by letting folks 
believe what they like." And then I explained, as deli- 
cately as I could, how his sudden championship could 
be of little advantage to me, and might do hun con- 
siderable harm. 

In his impetuous manner he cut short my carefully- 
expressed argument. 

"Rubbish! Heaps of people I know are already 
convinced that I was keeping Lola Brandt and that you 
took her from me in the ordinary vulgar way " 

"Yes, yes," I interrupted, shrinking. "That's why I 
order you, in Gkxl's name, to leave the whole thing alone." 

"But confound it, man!" he said. "I've come out 
of it all right, why shouldn't you? Even supposing 
Lola was a loose woman ^" 

I threw up my hand. " Stop!" 

He looked disconcerted for a moment. 

" We know she isn't, but for the sake of argimient ^" 

"Don't argue," said I. "Let us drop it." 

"But hang it all!" he shouted in desperation. "Can't 
I do something! Can't I go and kick somebody?" 

I lost my self-control. I rose and put both my hands 
on his shoulders and looked him in the eyes. 

"You can kick anybody you please whom you hear 
breathe a word against the honour and purity of Ma- 
dame Lola Brandt." 

Then I walked away, knowing I had betra)red m)rself , 
and tried to light a cigar with fingers that shook. There 
was a pause. Dale stood with his back to the fireplace, 
one foot on the fender. The cigar took some lighting. 
The pause grew irksome. 




286 SIMON THE JESTER 

''My regard for Madame Brandt," said I at last, "is 
such that I don't wish to disaiss her with any one/' 

I looked at Dale and met his keen eyes fixed on me. 
The faintest shadow of a smile played about his mouth. 

"Very well," said he dryly, "we won't discuss her. 
But all the same, my dear Simon, I can't help being 
interested in her; and as you're obviously the same, it 
seems rather curious that you don't know where she is." 

"Do you doubt me?" I asked, somewhat staggered 
by his tone. 

"Good Heavens, no I But if she has disappeared, Fm 
convinced that something has happened which I know 
nothing of. Of course, it's none of my business." 

There was a new and startling note of assurance in his 
voice. Certainly he had developed during the past few 
months. What I had done. Heaven only knows. Mis- 
fortune, which is supposed to be formative of character, 
seemed to have turned mine into pie. How can I other- 
wise accoimt for my not checking the lunatic impulse that 
prompted my next words. 

"Well, something has happened," said I, "and if 
we're to be friends, you had better know it. Two days 
ago, for the first time, I told Madame Brandt that I 
loved her. This very afternoon I went to get her answer 
to my question — ^would she marry me? — and I found 
that she had disappeared without leaving any address 
behind her. So whenever you hear her name mentioned 
you can just tell everybody that she's the one woman 
in the whole wide world I want to marry." 

"Poor old Simon," said Dale. "Poor old chap." 

"That's exactly how things stand," said I. 

"Lord, who would have thought it?" said Dale. 

"How I've borne with you talking about her all this 
evening the devil only knows," I cried. " You've driven 
me half crazy." 

" You should have told me to shut up." 



SIMON THE JESTER a«7 

"I<fid." 

"Poor old Simon. Fm so sorry — hut I had no idea 
you had fallen in love with her." 

"Fallen in love!'' said I, losing my head. "She's 
the only woman on Gkxi's ei*rth I've ever cared for. I 
want her as I've wanted nothing in the universe before." 

"And you've come to care for her as much as that?" 
he said sympathetically. " Poor old Simon." 

"Why the devil shouldn't I?" I shouted, nettled by 
his "poor old Simons." 

"Lola Brandt is hardly of your class," said Dale. 

I broke out furiously. "Damn class! Fve had 
enough of it. I'm going to take my life into my own 
hands and do what I like with it. I'm going to choose 
my mate without any reference to society. I've cut 
myself adrift from society. It can go hang. Lola 
Brandt is a woman worth any man's loving. She is 
a woman in a million. You know nothing whatever 
about her." 

The last words were scarcely out of my mouth when 
an echo from the distance came and, as it were, banged 
at my ears. Dale himself had shrieked them at me in 
exactly the same tone with reference to the same woman. 
I stopped short and looked at him for a moment rather 
stupidly. Then the imp of humour, who for some time 
had deserted me, flew to my side and tickled my brain. 
I broke into a chuckle, somewhat hysterical I must 
admit, and then, throwing myself into an arm-chair, 
gave way to imcontrollable laughter. 

The scare of the unexpected rose in Dale's eyes. 

"Why, what on earth is the matter?" 

"Can't you see?" I cried, as far as the paroxysms of 
my mirth would let me. "Can't you see how exqui- 
sitely ludicrous the whole thing has been from begin- 
ning to end? Don't you realise that you and I are 
playing the same scene as we played months ago in my 



288 SIMON THE JESTER 

library, with the only difiFerence that we have changed 
rdles? Tm the raving, infatuated youth, and you're 
the grave and reverend mentor. Don't you see? Don't 
you see?" 

"I can't see anything to laugh at," said Dale sturdily. 

And he couldn't. There are thousands of bright, 
flame-like human beings constituted like that. Life 
spreads out before them one of its most side-splitting, 
topsy-turvy farces and they see in it nothing to laugh at. 

To Dale the affair had been as serious and lacking in 
the fantastic as the measles. He had got over the 
disease and now was exceedingly sorry to perceive that 
I had caught it in my turn. 

"It isn't funny a Kt," he continued. "It's quite 
natural. I see it all now. You cut me out from the 
very first. You didn't mean to — ^you never thought of 
it. But what chance had I against you? I was a 
yoimg ass and you were a brilliant man of the world. I 
bear you no grudge. You played the game in that way. 
Then things happened — and at last you've fallen in love 
with her — and now just at the critical moment she has 
gone off into space. It must be devilish painful for 
you, if you ask me." 

"Oh, Dale," said I, shaking my head, "the only 
fitting end to the farce would be if you wandered over 
Europe to find and bring her back to me." 

"I don't know about that," said he, "because Fm 
engaged, and that, as I said, gives me occupation; but 
if I can do anything practicable, my dear old Simon, 
you've only got to send for me." 

He pulled out his watch. 

"My hat!" he exclaimed. "It's past two o'clock." 



CHAPTER XXn 

I AM a personage apart from humanity. I vary from 
the kindly ways of man. A curse is on me. 

Surely no man has fought harder than I have done to 
convince himself of the deadly seriousness of existence; 
and surely before the feet of no man has Destiny cast 
such stumbling-blocks to faith. I might be an ancient 
dweller in the Thebald struggling towards dreams of 
celestial habitations^ and confronted only by grotesque 
visions of hell. No matter what I do, I'm baffled. I 
look upon sorrow and say, "Lo, this is tragedy!" and 
hey, presto! a trick of lightning turns it into farce. I 
cry aioud, in perfervid zeal, "Life is real, life is earnest, 
and the apotheosis of the fantastic is not its goal," and 
immediately a grinning irony comes to give the lie to 
my credo. 

Or is it that, by inscrutable decree of the Almighty 
Powers, I am imdergoing punishment for an old im- 
regenerate point of view, being doomed to wear my 
detested motley for all eternity, to stretch out my hand 
for ever to grasp realities and find I can do nought but 
beat the air with my bladder; to listen with strained ear 
perpetually expectant of the music of the spheres, and 
catch nothing but the mocking jingle of the bells on my 
fool's cap? 

I don't know. I give it up. 

Such were my thoughts on the morning after my 
interview with Dale, when I had read a long, long letter 
from Lola, which she had despatched from Paris. 

The letter lies before me now, many pages in a curious, 
half-formed foreign hand. Many would think it an ill- 
written letter — ^for there are faults of spelling and faults 
19 289 



290 SIMON THE JESTER 

of grammar — ^but even now, as I look on those faults, 
the tears come into my eyes. Oh, how exquisitely, 
pathetically, monumentally, sublimely foolish! She 
had little or nothing to do with it, poor dear; it was 
only the Arch- Jester again, leading her blindly away, so 
as once more to leave me high and dry on the Hill of 
Derision. 

"... My dear, you must forgive me! My heart is 
breaking, but I know Fm doing right. There is nothing 
for it but to go out of your life for ever. It terrifies me 
to think of it, but it's the only way. I know you think 
you love me, dear; but you can't, you can't really love 
a woman so far beneath you, and I would sooner never 
see you again than marry you and wake up one day and 
find that you hated and scorned me. . . ." 

Can you wonder that I shook my fist at Heaven and 
danced with rage? 

"... Miss Eleanor Faversham called on me just a 
few minutes after you left me that afternoon. We had 
a long, long talk. Simon, dear, you must marry her. 
You loved her once, for you were engaged, and only 
broke it off because you thought you were going to die; 
and she loves you, Simon, and she is a lady with all the 
refinement and education that I could never have. She 
is of your class, dear, and understands you, and can help 
you on, whereas I could only drag you down. I am not 
fit to black her boots. . . ." 

And so forth, and so forth, in the most heartrending 
strain of insensate self-sacrifice and heroic self-abase- 
ment. The vainest and most heartless dog of a man 
stands abashed and helpless before such things in a 
woman. 

She had not seen or written to me because she would 
not have her resolution weakened. After the great 
wrench, succeeding things were easier. She had taken 
Anastasius's cats and proposed to work them in the 



SIMON THE JESTER 291 

music-balls abroad and send the proceeds to be ad- 
ministered for the little man's comfort at the Maison de 
Sant^. As both her name and the Papadopoulos troupe 
of cats were well known in the "variety" world, it would 
be a simple matter to obtain engagements. She had 
already opened negotiations for a short season some- 
where abroad. I was not to be anxious about her. She 
would have plenty of occupation. 

"... I am not sending you any address, for I don't 
want you to know where I am, dear. I shan't write 
to you again imless I scribble things and tear them 
up without posting. This is final. When a woman 
makes such a break she must do it once and for all. Oh, 
Simon, when you kissed me two da3rs ago you thought 
you loved me; but I know what the senses are and how 
they deceive people, and I had only just caught your 
senses on that spring afternoon, and I made you do it, 
for I had been aching, aching for months for a word of 
love from you, and when it came I was ashamed. But I 
should have been weak and shut my eyes to everything 
if Miss Faversham had not come to me like God's good 
angel. . . ." 

At the fourth reading of the letter I stopped short at 
these words. God's good angel, indeed I Could any- 
thing have been more calculated to put a man into a 
frenzy? I seized my hat and stick and went in search 
of the nearest public telephone office. In less than ten 
minutes I had arranged an inmiediate interview with 
Eleanor Faversham at my sister Agatha's, and in less 
than half an hour I was pacing up and down Agatha's 
sitting-room waiting for her. God's good angel! The 
sound of the words made me choke with wrath. There 
are times when angelic interference in human destinies 
is entirely unwarrantable. I stamped and I fumed, 
and I composed a speech in which I told Eleanor exactly 
what I thought of angels. 



292 SIMON THE JESTER 

As I had to wait a considerable time, however, before 
Eleanor appeared, the raging ^doIence of my wrath 
abated, and when she did enter the room, smiling and 
fresh, with the spring in her clear eyes and a flush on her 
cheek, I just said: "How d'ye do, Eleanor?" in the 
most commonplace way, and offered her a chair. 

"Tve come, you see. You were rather peremptory, 
so I thought it must be a matter of great importance." 

"It is," said I. "You went to see Madame Brandt." 

"I did," she replied, looking at me steadily, "and I 
have tried to write to you, but it was more difficult than 
I thought." 

"Well," said I, "it's no use writing now, for youVe 
managed to drive her out of the coimtry." 

She half rose in her chair and regarded me with wide- 
blue eyes. 

"I've driven her out of the country?" 

"Yes; with her maid and her belongings and Anas- 
tasius Papadopoulos's troupe of performing cats, and 
Anastasius Papadopoulos's late pupil and assistant Quast. 
She has given up her comfortable home in London and 
now proposes to be a wanderer among the music-halls 
of Europe." 

"But that's not my fault!" cried Eleanor. "Indeed, 
it isn't." 

"She says in a letter I received this morning bearing 
no address, that if you hadn't come to her like God's 
good angel, she would have remained in London." 

Eleanor looked bewildered. "I thought I had made 
it perfectly clear to her." 

"Made what clear?" 

She blushed a furious red. "Can't you guess? You 
must be as stupid as she is. And, of course, you're 
wildly angry with me. Aren't you?" 

"I certainly wish you hadn't gone to see her," said I. 

"Was it merely to tell me this that you ordered me to 



SIMON THE JESTER 293 

come here?" she asked, with a touch of anger in her 
voice, for however much like God's good angels young 
women may be, they generally have a spirit of their own. 

I felt I had been wanting in tact; also that I had put 
myself — through an impetuosity foreign to what I had 
thought to be my character — ^in a foolish position. If I 
replied affirmatively to her question, she would have 
served me perfectly right by tossing her head in the air 
and marching indignantly out of the room. I tempo- 
rised. 

"In order to understand the extraordinary conse- 
quences of your interview, I should like to have some 
idea of what took place. I know, my dear Eleanor," I 
continued as gently as I could, "I know that you went 
to see her out of the very great kindness of your 
heart '' 

"No, I didn't," said Eleanor. 

I made a little gesture in lieu of reply. There was a 
span of silence. Eleanor played with the silky ears of 
Agatha's little Yorkshire terrier which had somehow 
strayed into the room and taken possession of her lap. 

"Don't you see, Simon," she said at last, half tear- 
fully, without taking her eyes oflF the dog, "don't you see 
that by accusing me in this way you make it almost 
impossible for me to speak? And I was going to be so 
loyal to you." 

A tear fell down her cheek on to the dog's back, and 
convicted me of unmitigated brutality. 

"What else could you be but loyal?" I murmured. 
" Your attitude all through has shown it." 

She flashed her hand angrily over her eyes, and looked 
at me. "And I wanted to be loyal to the end. If you 
had waited and she had waited, you would have seen. 
As soon as I could have conveyed it to you decently, I 

should have shown you Ah!" She broke ofiF, 

put the Yorkshire terrier on the sofa beside her, and 



294 SIMON THE JESTER 

rose with an impatient gesture. "You want to know 
why I called on Lola Brandt? I felt I had to know for 
m3rself what kind of ' woman she was. She was the 
woman between us — ^you and me. You don't suppose 
I ceased to care for you just because what we thought 
was a fatal illness broke off our engagement! I did 
care for you. I cared for you — ^in a way; I say *in a 
way' — I'll tell you why later on. When we met here 
the last time do you think I was not moved? I knew 
yom: altered position would not allow you to suggest a 
renewal of the engagement so I offered you the oppor- 
tunity. Do you remember? But I could not tell 
whether you still cared for me or whether you cared for 
the other woman. So I had to go and see her. I 
couldn't bear to think that you might feel in honour 
boimd to take me at my word and be caring all the time 
for some one else. I went to see her, and then I realised 
that I didn't count. Don't ask why. Women know 
these things. And I found that she loved )rou with a 
warmth and richness I'm incapable of. I felt I had 
stepped into something big and splendid, as if I had been 
a caterpillar walking into the heart of a red rose. I felt 
prim and small and petty. Until then I had never 
known what love meant, and I didn't feel it; I couldn't 
feel it. I couldn't give you a millionth part of what 
that woman does. And I knew that having lived in 
that atmosphere, you couldn't possibly be content with 
me. If you had waited, I should have found some 
means of telling you so. That's what I meant by saying 
I was loyal to you. And I thought I had made it dear 
to her. It seems I didn't. It isn't my fault." 

"My dear," said I, when she had come to the end of 
this astonishing avowal, and stood looking at me some- 
what defiantly and twisting her fingers nervously in front 
of her, "I don't know what in the world to say to you." 

" You can tell me, at least, that my instinct was right." 



SIMON THE JESTER 295 

"Which one? A woman has so many.*' 

"That you love Lola Brandt." 

I lifted my arms in a helpless gesture and let them 
drop to my sides. 

" One is not one's own master in these things." 

"Then you do?" 

"Yes," said I in a low voice. 
. Eleanor drew a long breath, turned and sat down 
again on the sofa. 

"And she knows it?" 

" I have told her so." 

"Then why in the world has she nm away?" 

"Because you two wonderful and divinely foolish 
people have been too big for each other. While you 
were impressed by one quality in her she was equally 
impressed by another in you. She departed, burning 
her ships, so as to go entirely out of my life for the simple 
reason, as she herself expresses it, that she was not fit to 
black your boots. So," said I, taking her left hand in 
mine and patting it gently, "between you two dear, 
divine angel fools, I fall to the ground." 

A while later, just before we parted, she said in her 
frank way: 

"I know many people would say Fve behaved with 
shocking impropriety — immodestly and all that. You 
don't, do you? I believe half the tmhappiness in life 
comes from people being afraid to go straight at things. 
Perhaps I've gone too straight tMs time — ^but you'll 
forgive me?" 

I smiled and squeezed her hand. "My dear," said I, 
"Lola Brandt was right. You are God's good angel." 

I went away in a chastened mood, no longer wrathful, 
for what could woman do more for mortal man than 
what Eleanor Faversham had attempted? She had 
gone to see whether she should stand against her rival, 
and with a superb generosity, unprecedented in her sex. 



296 SIMON THE JESTER 

she had withdrawn. The magnanimity of it over- 
whebned me. I walked along the street exalting her 
to viewless pinnacles of high-heartedness. And then, 
suddenly, the Devil whispered in my ear that execrated 
word " eumoiriety." It poisoned the rest of the day. 
It confirmed my conviction of the ironical designs of 
Destiny. Destiny, not content with making me a vic- 
tim of the accursed principle in my own person, had 
used these two dear women as its instruments in dealing 
me fresh humiliation. Where would it end? Where 
could I turn to escape such an enemy? If I had been 
alone in green fields instead of Sloane Square, I should 
have clapped my hands to my head and prayed God not 
to drive me crazy. I should have cried wild vows to the 
winds and shaken my fist at the sky and rolled upon 
the grass and made a genteel idiot of myself. Nature 
would have understood. Men do these things in time of 
stress, and I was in great stress. I loved a woman for 
the first time in my life— and I was a man nearly forty. 
I wanted her with every quivering nerve in me. And 
she was gone. Lost in the vast expanse of Europe 
with a parcel of performing cats. Gone out of my Itfe 
loving me as I loved her, all on account of this Hell- 
invented principle. Ye gods! If the fierce, pure, deep, 
abiding love of a man for a woman is not a reality, what 
in this world of shadows is an)rthing but vapour? I 
grasped it tight, hugged it to my bosom — ^and now she 
was gone, and in my ears rang the derisive laughter of 
the enemy. 

Where would it end? What would happen next? 
Nothing was too outrageously, maniacally impossible. 
I walked up Sloane Street, a street which for impecca- 
ble respectability, security of life and person, comfort- 
able, modem, twentieth-century, prosperous smugness 
has no superior in all the smug cities of the earth, and 
I was prepared to encounter with a smile of recognition 



SIMON THE JESTER 297 

anything that the whirling brains of Bedlam had ever 
conceived. Why should not this little lady tripping 
along with gold chain-bag and anxious, shopping knit of 
the brow, throw her arms roimd my neck and salute me 
as her long-lost brother? Why should not the patient 
horses in that omnibus suddenly turn into griffins and 
begin to snort fire from their nostrils? W^hy should not 
that policeman, who, on his beat, was approaching me 
with heavy, measured tread, suddenly arrest me for 
complicity in the Pazzi Conspiracy or the Rye House 
Plot? Why should not the whole of the decorous 
street suddenly change into the inconsequence of an 
Empire ballet? Why should not the heavens fall down 
and imiversal chaos envelop all? 

The only possible reason I can think of now is that 
the Almighty Powers did not consider it worth while to 
go to quite so much trouble on my accoimt. 

This, however, gives you some idea of my state of 
mind. But though it lasted for a considerable time, I 
would not have you believe that I fostered it unduly. 
Indeed, I repudiated it with some disgust. I took it 
out, examined it, and finding it preposterous, set to 
work to modify it into harmony with the circumstances 
of my every-day life. Even the most sorely tried of 
men cannot walk abroad shedding his exasperation 
aroimd like a pestilence. If he does, he is put into a 
limatic asylum. 

If a man cannot immediately assuage the himger of 
his heart, he must meet starvation with a smiling face. 
In the meantime, he has to eat so as to satisfy the hunger 
of his body, to clothe himself with a certain discrimina- 
tion, to attend to polite commerce with his fellow man 
and to put to some fair use the hours of his day. I did 
not doubt but that by means of intelligent inquiry which 
I determined to pursue in every possible direction I 
should sooner or later obtain news of Lola. A lady 




298 SIMON THE JESTER 

with a troupe of performing cats could not for long 
remain in obscurity. True, I might have gone in gallant 
quest of her; but I bad had enough of such fool adven- 
tures. I bided my time, consulted with Dale, who took 
up the work of a private detective agency with his usual 
zeal, writing letters to every crony who languished in 
the exile of foreign embassies, and corresponding (im- 
known to Lady Kynnersley) with the agencies of the 
International Aid Society, did what I could on my own 
accoimt, and turned my attention seriously to the re- 
generation of the Judds. 

As the affairs of one drunken tailor*s family could not 
afford me complete occupation for my leisure hours, I 
began to find myself insensibly drawn by Campion's 
imreffecting enthusiasm into all kinds of small duties 
connected with Barbara's Building. Before I could 
realise thp^ I had consented, I discovered myself in 
charge of an evening class of villainous-looking and im- 
deanly youths who assembled in one of the lecture- 
rooms to listen to my recollections of the history of 
England. I was to continue the course begun by a 
yoimg Oxford man, who, for some reason or other, had 
migrated from Barbara's Building to Toynbee Hall. 

"I've never done any schoolmastering in my life. 
Suppose," said I, with vivid recollections of my school 
days, "suppose they rag me?" 

"They won't," said Campion, who had come to intro- 
duce me to the class. 

And they did not. I found these five and twenty 
youthful members of the proletariat the most attentive, 
respectable, and intelligent audience that ever listened 
to a lecture. Gradually I came to perceive that they 
were not as villainous-looking and uncleanly as at first 
sight I had imagined. A great many of them took notes. 
When I had come to the end of my dissertation on 
Henry VIH., I went among them, as I discovered the 



SIMON THE JESTER 299 

custom to be, and chatted, answering questions, explain- 
ing difficulties, and advising as to a course of reading. 
The atmosphere of trust and friendliness compensated 
for the lack of material sweetness. Here were young 
men pathetically eager to learn, grateful for every 
crumb of information that came from my lips. They 
reminded me of nothing more than the ragged class of 
scholars around a teacher in a mediaeval university. 
Some had vague dreams of eventually presenting them- 
selves for examinations, the Science and Art Depart- 
ment, the College of Preceptors, the Matriculation of the 
University of London. Others longed for education 
for its own sake, or rather as a means of raising them- 
selves in the social scale. Others, bitten by the crude 
Socialism of their class, had been persuaded to learn 
something of past movements of mankind so as to ob- 
tain some basis for their opinions. All were in deadly 
earnest. The magnetic attraction between teacher and 
taught established itself. After one or two lectures, 
I looked forward to the next with excited interest. 

Other things Campion oflF-handedly put into my 
charge. I went on tours of inspection round the houses 
of his competing housewives. I acted as his deputy at 
the police court when ladies and gentlemen with a good 
record at Barbara's got into trouble with the constabu- 
lary. I investigated cases for the charity of the institu- 
tion. In quite a short time I realised with a gasp that 
I had become part of the machinery of Barbara's Build- 
ing, and was remorselessly and helplessly whirled hither 
and thither with the rest by the force of the driving wheel 
which was Rex Campion. 

The amazing, the astounding, the utterly incredible 
thing about the whole matter was that I not only liked 
it, but plunged into it heart and soul as I had never 
plunged into work before. I discovered s)rmpathies 
that had hitherto Iain undreamed of within me. In my 




3CX) SIMON THE JESTER 

electioneering days I had, it is true, foregathered with 
the sons of toil. I had shaken the homy hands of men 
and the soap-suddy hands of women. I had flattered 
them and cajoled them and shown m3rself mighty a£Fa- 
ble, as a sensible and aspiring Parliamentary candidate 
should do; but the way to their hearts I had never 
foimd, I had never dreamed of seeking. And now it 
seemed as if the great gift had been bestowed on me — 
and I examined it with a new and almost tremulous 
delight. 

Also, for the first time in all my life, I had taken pain 
to be the companion of my soul. All my efforts to find 
Lola were fruitless. I became acquainted with the heart- 
ache, the longing for the unattainable, the agony of 
spirit. The only anodyne was a forgetfulness of self, 
the only compensation a glinmier of a hope and the shadow 
of a smile in the grey and leaden lives aroimd me. 

On Whit Monday evening I was walking along the 
Thames Embankment on my way home from Waterloo 
Station, wet through, tired out, disappointed, and look- 
ing forward to the dry, soft raiment, the warm, cosy 
room, the excellent dinner that awaited me in my flat. 
I — ^with several others — had been helping Campion 
with his annual outing of factory girls and young hooli- 
gans. The weather, which had been perfect on Satur- 
day, Sunday, and when we had started, a gay and as- 
tonishing army, at seven o'clock, had broken before 
ten. It had rained, dully, miserably, insistently all 
day long. The happy day in the New Forest had been 
a damp and dismal fiasco. I was returning home, 
thinking I might walk off an incipient chill, as depressed 
as no one but the baflled philanthropist can be, when I 
perceived a tattered and dejected man sitting on a 
bench, a clothes-basket between his feet, his elbows on 
his knees, his head in his hands, and sobbing as if his 



SIMON THE JESTER 301 

heart would break. As the spectacle of a grown-up 
man crymg bitterly in a public thoroughfare was some- 
what remarkable, I paused, and then in order to see 
whether his distress was genuine, and also not to arouse 
his suspicions, I threw myself in an exhausted manner 
on the bench beside him. He continued to sob. At 
last I said, raising my voice: 

"You seem to be pretty miserable. What's wrong?" 

He turned bleared, yet honest-looking eyes upon me. 

"The whole blasted show!" said he. "There's 
nothing right in it, s'welp me Gawd." 

I gave a modified assent to the proposition and drew 
my coat-collar over my eyes. "Being wet through 
doesn't make it any better," said I. 

"Who would ha' thought it would come down as it 
has to-day? Tell me that. It's enough to make a 
man cut his throat!" 

I was somewhat surprised. "You're not in such a 
great distress just because it has been a rainy day!" 

"Ain't I just!" he exclaimed. "It's been and gone 
and ruined me, this day has. Look 'ere, guv'nor, I'll 
tell you all about it. I've been out of work, see? I 
was in 'orspital for three months and I couldn't get 
nothing regular to do when I come out. I'm a packer 
by trade. I did odd jobs, see, and the wife she earned 
a little, too, and we managed to keep things going and 
to scrape together five shillings, that's three months' 
savings, against Whitsun Bank Holiday. And as the 
weather was so fine, I laid it all out in paper windmills 
to sell to the kids on 'Amstead 'Eath. And I started 
out this morning with the basket full of them all so fine 
and pretty, and no sooner do I get on the 'Eath than the 
rain comes down and wipes out the whole blooming lot, 
before I could sell one. Look 'ere!" 

He drew a bedraggled sheet of newspaper from the 
dotbes-basket and displayed a piteous sodden welter of 




302 SIMON THE JESTER 

sticks and gaudy pulp. At the sight of it he broke down 
again and sobbed like a child. 

"And there's not a bite in the 'ouse, nor not likely to 
. be for days; and I daren't go home and face the missus 
and the kids — and I wish I was dead." 

I had already seen many pitiful tragedies during my 
brief experience with Campion; but the peculiar pitiful- 
ness of this one wrung my heart. It taught me as noth- 
ing had done before how desperately humble are the 
aspirations of the poor. I thought of the cosy com- 
fort that awaited me in my own home; the deqxair that 
awaited him in his. 

I put my hand in my pocket. 

" You seem to be a good chap," said I. 

He shrugged his shoulders. The consdousoess of 
applauded virtue ofiFered no consolation. I drew out a 
couple of half-crowns and threw them into the basket. 

" For the missus and the kids," said I. 

He picked them out of the welter, and holding them 
in his hand, looked at me stupidly. 

"Can you afford it, guv'nor?" 

At first I thought this remark was some kind of ill- 
conditioned sarcasm; but suddenly I realised that 
dripping wet and covered with mud from head to foot, 
with a shapeless, old, green Homburg hat drooping for- 
lornly about my ears, I did not fulfil his conception of 
the benevolent millionaire. I laughed, and rose from 
the bench. 

" Yes. Quite well. Better luck next time.** 

I nodded a good-bye, and walked away. After a 
minute, he came running after me. 

"'Ere," said he, "I ain't thanked yer. Gawd knows 
how Fm going to do it. I cam't! But, 'ere — would 
you mind if I chucked a lot of the stuff into the river 
and told the missus I had sold it, and just got back my 
money? She's proud, she is, and has never accepted a 




• > 1 > • > • I . , 



> » > > « 



' ^ 






^••n 



SIMON THE JESTER 303 

penny ki charity in her life. It's only because it would 
be better for 'er." 

He looked at me with such earnest appeal that I saw 
that the saving of the wife's pride was a serious matter. 

"Of course," said I, "and here's a few ha'pence to 
add to it, so as to give colour to the story." 

He saw that I understood. "Thank you kindly, sir," 
said he. 

" Tell me," said I, " do you love your wife ? " 

He gaped at me for a moment; obviously the ques- 
tion had never been put to him either by himself or any- 
body else. Then, seeing that my interest was genuine^ 
he spat and scratched his head. 

"We've been together twenty years," he said, in a 
low voice, emotion struggling with self-consciousness, 
"and I've 'ad nothing agin her all that time. She's a 
bloomin' wonder, I tell you straight." 

I held out my hand. "At any rate, you've got what 
I haven't," said I. "A woman who loves you to wel- 
come you home." 

And I went away longing, longing for Lola's arms and 
the deep love in her voice. 

Now that I come to view my actions in some sort of 
perspective, it seems to me that it was the imderlying 
poignancy of this tnmipery incident — sl poignancy 
which, nevertheless, bit deep into my soul, that finally 
determined the current of my life. 

A short while afterwards. Campion, who for some 
time past had foimd that the organisation of Barbara's 
Building had far outgrown his individual power of con- 
trol, came to me with a proposal that I should imder- 
take the management of the institution imder his gen- 
eral directorship. As he knew of my financial afiFairs 
and of my praiseworthy but futile efforts to live on 
two hundred a year, he offered me another two himdred 
by way of salary and quarters in the Building. I ac- 




304 



SIMON THE JESTER 



cepted, moved the salvage of my belongings from Vic- 
toria Street to Lambeth, and settled down to the work 
for which a mirth-loving Providence had destined me 
from my cradle. 
When I told Agatha, she nearly fainted. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

No sooner had I moved into Barbara's Building and 
was preparing to begin my salaried duties than I re- 
ceived news which sent me off post haste to Berlin. 
And just as it was not I but Anastasius Papadopoulos 
who discovered Captain Vauvenarde, so, in this case, it 
was Dale who discovered Lola. 

He burst in upon me one day, flourishing a large 
visiting-card, which he flung down on the table before 
my eyes. 

"Do you recognise that?" 

It was the familiar professional card of the unhappy 
Anastasius. 

"Yes," said I. 

"Do you see the last line?" 

I read "London Agents: Messrs. Conto and Blag, 
172 Maiden Lane, W.C." I looked up. "Well?" I 
asked. 

" It has done the trick," said he triumphantly. " What 
fools we were not to have thought of it before. I was 
rooting out a drawer of papers and came across the 
card. You remember he handed us one all round 
the first day we met him. I put it away — ^I'm rather a 
methodical devil with papers, as you know. When I 
found it, I danced a hornpipe all round the room and 
went straight off to Conto and Blag. I made certain 
she would work through them, as they were accustomed 
to shop the cats, and I foimd I was right. They know 
all about her. Wouldn't give her address, but told me 
that she was appearing this week as ever is at the Winter 
Garten at Berlin. Why that pudding-headed quagga, 
20 305 




3o6 SIMON THE JESTER 

Bevan, at the Embassy, hasn't kept his eyes opai for 
me, as he promised/' he went on a while later, ''I dcm't 
know! I can understand Eugen Pattenhausen, the 
owl-eyed coot who runs the International Aid Society, 
not dcing a hand's turn to aid anybody — ^but Bevan! 
For Heaven's sake, while you're there call at the Em- 
bassy and kick him." 

"You forget, my dear boy," said I, with a laugh, for 
his news had made me light-hearted, "you forget that 
I have entered upon a life of self-denial, and one of the 
luxuries I must deny myself is that of kicking attaches." 

"I've a good mind to go with you and do it myself. 
But it'll keep. Do you know, it's rather quaint, isn't 
it?" he said, after a pause, as if struck by a luminous 
idea — "it's rather quaint that it should be I who am 
playing the little tin god on wheels for you two, and say- 
ing 'Bless you, my children.'" 

"I thought the humour of the situation couldn't fail 
to strike you at last." 

"Yes," said he, knitting his brows into an air (rf dark 
reflection, "it is funny. Devilish fuimy!" 

I dismissed him with grateful words, and in a flutter 
of excitement went in search of Campion, whom I was 
lucky to find in the building. 

"I'm sorry to ask for leave of absence," said I, "before 
Fve actually taken up my appointment; but I must 
do so. I am siunmoned at once to Berlin on important 
business." 

Campion gave willing consent. ' "How long will you 
be away?" 

"That depends," said I, with a smile which I meant 
to be enigmatic, but assiuredly must have been fatuous, 
" upon my powers of persuasion." 

I had bright thoughts of going to Berlin and back in 
a meteoric flash, bringing Lola with me on my retium 
journey, to marry her out of hand as soon as we reached 



SIMON THE JESTER 307 

LondoiL Cats and Winter Gartens concerned me but 
littlCy and of trifles like contracts I took no account. 

"If you're there any time," said Campion, tugging 
thoughtfully at his black beard, '*you might look into 
what the Germans are doing with regard to Female 
Rescue Work. You might pick up a practical tip or 
two for use down here." 

What a thing it is to be a man of one ideal I gave 
him an evasive answer and rushed away to make the 
necessary preparations for my journey. I was absurdly, 
boyishly happy. No doubt as to my success crossed my 
mind. It was to be my final and triumphant adven- 
ture. Unless the High Powers stove a hole in the 
steamer or sent another railway train to collide with 
mine, the non-attainment of my object seemed impos- 
sible. I had but to go, to be seen, to conquer. 

I arrived safely in Berlin at half-past seven in the 
evening, and drove to a modest hotel in the Kaiser- 
strasse, where I had engaged a room. My first inquiry 
was for a letter from Lola. To my cUsappointment 
nothing awaited me. I had telegraphed to her at the 
Winter Garten the day before, and I had written as well. 
A horrible surmise began to dance before me. Suppose 
Messrs. Conto and Blag had given Dale erroneous in- 
formation! I grew sick and faint at the thought. 
What laughter there would be in Olympus over my fool 
journey! In great agitation I clamoured for a pro- 
gramme of the Winter Garten entertainment. The 
hotel clerk put it into my trembling hands. There 
was no mention of Madame Lola Brandt, but to my 
unspeakable comfort I saw the annoimcement: 

^^Professarin Anastasius Papadopoulos und ihre vmn- 
derbaren KcUzen.^^ 

Lola was working the cats imder the little man's 
name. That was why she had baffled the inquiries in- 
stituted by Dale and myself and had not received my 



3o8 SIMON THE JESTER 

telegram. I scribbled a hasty note in which I told her 
of my arrival, my love, and my impatience; that I 
proposed to witness the performance that evening, and 
to meet her inmiediately afterwards at the stage -door. 
This, addressed to the Professorin Anastasius Papado- 
poulos, I despatched by special messenger to the Winter 
Garten. After a hasty toilet and a more hurried meal, 
I went out, and, too impatient to walk, I hailed a droschky, 
and drove through the wide, cheery streets of Berlin. 
It was a balmy Jime evening. The pavements were 
thronged. Through the vast open fronts of the cai6s 
one saw agglutinated masses of people just cleft here 
and there by white-jacketed waiters darting to and 
fro with high-poised trays of beer and coffee. Save 
these and the folks in theatres all Berlin was in the 
streets, taking the air. A sense of gaiety pervaded the 
place, organised and recognised, as though it were as 
much part of a Berliner's duty to himself, the Father- 
land, and the Almighty to be gay when the labours of 
the day are over as to be serious during business hours. 
He goes through it with a grave face and enjoys himself 
prodigiously. Your Latin when he fills the street with 
jest and laughter obeys the ebullience of his tempera- 
ment; your Teuton always seems to be conscientiously 
obeying a book of regulations. 

I soon arrived at the Winter Garten and secured a 
stall near the stage. The vast building was packed with 
a smoking and perspiring multitude. In shape it was 
like a long timnel or a long, narrow railway station, an 
impression intensified by a monotonous barrel roof. 
Tlus was, however, painted blue and decorated with 
myriads of golden stars. Along one side ran a gallery 
where those who liked to watch the performance and 
eat a six-course dinner at the same time could do so in 
elaborate comfort. In the centre of the opposite side 
was the stage, and below it, grouped in a semi-drde, the 



SIMON THE JESTER 309 

orchestra. Beneath the starry roof hung long wisps of 
smoky clouds. 

The performance had only just begun and Lola's turn 
was seventh on the list. I reflected that greater delibe- 
ration in my movements would have better suited the 
matiuity of my years, besides enabling me to eat a 
more digestible dinner. I had come with the imreason- 
ing impatience of a boy, fully conscious that I was too 
early, yet desperately anxious not to be too late. I 
laughed at myself indulgently and patted the boy in 
me on the head. Meanwhile, I gave myself up with 
mild interest to the entertainment provided. It was 
the same as that at any music-hall, winter garden, or 
variety theatre the world over. The same brawny 
gentlemen in tights made human pyramids out of them- 
selves and played football with the little boys and 
minced with their aggravating steps down to the foot- 
lights; the same red-nosed down tried to emulate his 
dashmg companion on the horizontal bars, pulling him- 
self up, to the eternal delight of the audience, by the 
seat of his baggy breeches, and hanging his hat on the 
smooth steel upright; the same massive lady with the 
deep chest sang sentimental ballads; the same China- 
man produced warrens of rabbits and flocks of pigeons 
from impossible receptacles; the same half-dozen 
scantily clad damsels sang the same inane chorus in the 
same flat babv voices and danced the same old dance. 
Mankind in the bulk is very young; it is very easily 
amused and, like a child, clamours for the oft-repeated 
tale. 

The ciutain went down on the last turn before Lola's. 
I felt a curious suspense, and half wished that I had not 
come to see the performance. I shrank from finding her 
a million miles away from me, a new, remote creatiu^, 
impersonal as those who had already appeared on the 
stage. Mingled with this was a fear lest she might not 



i 



3IO SIMON THE JESTER 

please this vast audience. Failure, I felt, would be as 
humiliating to me as to her. Agatha, I remembered, 
confessed to the same feeling with regard to myself 
when I made my first speech in the House of Commons. 
But then I had an incontrovertible array of facts and 
arguments, drawn up by an infallible secretary and 
welded into cunning verbiage by myself, which I learned 
off by heart. And the House, as I knew it would, had 
been half asleep. I couldn't fail. But Lola had to 
please three thousand wide-awake Berlin citizens, who 
bad paid their money for entertainment, with do other 
equipment than her own personality and the tricks of a 
set oJ wretched iirespon^ble cats. 

The orchestra struck up the act mu^c. The curtains 
parted, and revealed the brightly polished miniature 
gymnasium I had seen at Anasta^us's cattery; the row 
of pussies at the back, each on a velvet stand, some 
white, some tabby, some long-furred, some short-furred, 
all ^tting with their forepaws doubled demurely under 
their chests, wagging their tails comically, and blinking 
with feline indifference at the footlights; a cage in a 
comer in which I descried the ferocious wild tomcat; 
and, busily putting the last touches to the guy ropes, , 
the pupil and assistant Quast, neatly atttred in a dose 
fitting bottle-green uniform with brass buttons. Al- ' 
most immediately Lola appeared, in a shimmering gold . 
evening gown, and with a necklet of barbaric gold round ' 
her neck. I had never seen her so magnihcentty, sor 
commandingly beautiful. I was conscious of a ripple 
of admiration nmning through the huge as5embly^iut(( 
it was a queer sensation, half pride, half angry jcalousjt 
My immediate neighbors were emphatic in their praise 
Applause greeted her. She smiled acknowledgmeol 
and, flicking the little toy whip which she carried i 
ber hand, she began the act. First of all, the cm 
jumped from their stands, right-turned like a m 



SIMON THE JESTER 311 

tary liney and walked in procession round the stage. At 
a halt and a signal each pussy put its front paws on its 
front neighbour and the march began again. Then Lola 
did something with voice and whip, and each cat dropped 
on its paws, and as if by magic there appeared a space 
between every animal. 

At a further word the last cat jumped over the one in 
front and over the one in front of that and so on until, 
having cleared the first cat, it leaped on to its stand 
where it began to lick itself placidly. Meanwhile, the 
penultimate cat had begun the same evolution, and 
then the ante-penultimate cat, until all the cats had 
cleared the front one and had taken their positions on 
their stands. The last cat, left alone, looked round, 
yawned in the face of the audience, and, turning tail, 
regained its stand with the air of unutterable boredom. 
The audience, delighted, applauded vehemently. I 
raised my hands as I clapped them, trying vainly and 
foolishly to catch Lola's eye. 

At a tap of her whip a white angora and a sleek tabby 
jimiped from the stands and took up their positions one 
at each end of a miniature tight-rope. Lola struck a 
tiny Japanese umbrella in the collar of each and sent 
them forth on their perilous journey. When they met 
in the middle, they spat and caterwauled and argued 
spitefully. The audience shrieked. Then by a miracle 
the cats cleared each other and pursued their sedate and 
cautious ways to their respective ends of the rope. The 
next act was a team of a dozen rats drawing a gilded 
chariot driven by a stolid coal-black cat with green, 
expressionless eyes, down an aisle formed by the other 
cats who sat in solemn contemplation on their tails. 
There was no doubt of Lola's success. The tricks were 
as marvellous in themselves as their execution was flaw- 
less. During the applause I noticed her eagerly scan- 
ning the sea of faces. Her eyes seemed to be turned in 



312 SIMON THE JESTER 

my direction. I waved my handkerchief, and instinct 
told me that at last she recognised the point of pink 
and the flutter of white as me. 

Then the stage was cleared of the gentle cats and the 
wire cage containing Hephaestus was pushed forward 
by Quast. He showed off the ferocious beast's quality 
by making it dash itself against the wires, arch its huge 
back, and shoot out venomous claws. Lola commanded 
him by sign to open the cage. He approached in simu- 
lated terror, Hephaestus uttering blood-curdling howls, 
and every time he touched the handle of the door He- 
phaestus sprang at him like a tiger with the tomcat's hate- 
ful hiss. At last, amid the laughter of the audience 
(for this was prearranged business), Quast suddenly 
refused to obey his mistress any more, and went and 
sat on the floor in the comer of the stage. Then Lola, 
with a glance of contempt at him for his poltroonery 
and a glance of confidence at the audience, opened the 
cage door and dragged the gigantic and malevolent 
brute out by the scruff of its neck and held it up like a 
rabbit, as she had done in Anastasius's cattery. 

Suddenly her iron grip seemed to relax; she made 
one or two ineffectual efforts to retain it and the brute 
dropped to the ground. She looked at it for a second 
disconcerted as if she had lost her nprve, and then, in a 
horrible flash, the beast sprang at her face. She uttered 
piercing screams. The blood spurted from the ghastly 
claws. Quick as lightning Quast leapt forward and 
dragged it off. Lola clapped both hands to her eyes, 
and reeled and tottered to the wings, where I saw a 
man's two arms receive her. The last thing I saw was 
Quast kneeling on the beast on the floor mastering him 
by some professional clutch. Then there rang out a 
sharp whistle and the curtain went down ynth a run. 

I rose, sick with horror, barely conscious of the gasp- 
ing excitement that prevailed around me, and blindly 



SIMON THE JESTER 313 

groped my path through the crowded rows of folk to- 
wards the door. I had only proceeded half-way when 
a sudden silence made me turn, and I saw a man address- 
ing the audience from the stage. Apparently it was 
the manager. He regretted to have to inform the au- 
dience that Madame Papadopoulos would not be able 
to conclude her most interesting performance that 
evening as she had imfortunately received injiuies of a 
very grave nature. Then he signalled to the orchestra, 
who crashed into a loud and vulgar march with clanging 
brass and thundering drum. It sounded so cynically 
and hideously inhuman that I trampled recklessly over 
people in my mad rush to the exit. 

I found the stage-door, where a knot of the per- 
formers were assembled, talking of the horrible acci- 
dent. I pushed my way shiveringly through them, and 
tried to rush into the building, but was checked by a 
burly porter and a gruff ^^Was woUen Sie?^* I ex- 
plained incoherently in my rusty German. I came for 
news of Madame Papadopoulos. I was her Verlobier, I 
declared, with a gush of inspiration. Whether he be- 
lieved that I was her aflSanced I know not, but he bade 
me wait, and disappeared with my card. I became at 
once the object of the curiosity of the loungers. I 
heard them whispering together as they pointed me out 
and pitying me. The cat had torn her face away! said 
one woman. It was schrecklichi I put my hands over 
my ears so as not to hear. Presently the porter re- 
turned with a stout person in authority, who drew me 
into the stage-doorkeeper's box. 

"You are a friend of Frau Papadopoulos?" 

"Friend!" I cried. "She is to be my wife. I am 
in a state of horror and despair. Um Gottes Willen^ tell 
me what has happened." 

Seeing my condition, he laid aside his oflScial manner 
and became himian. It was a dreadful accident, said 




314 SIMON THE JESTER 

he. The beast had apparently got its claws in near her 
eyes; but what were her exact injuries he could not tell, 
as her face was all over blood and she had fainted with 
the pain. The doctor was with her. He had tele- 
phoned for an ambulance. I was to be quite certain 
that she would receive every possible attention. He 
would give my card to the doctor. Meanwhile I was 
quite at liberty to remain in the box till the ambulance 
came. I thanked him. 

"In the meantime," said I, **if you can let me have 
a word with Fraulein Dawkins, her maid, should she be 
in the theatre, or Quast her attendant, I should be 
grateful." 

He promised and withdrew. The doorkeeper gave 
me a wooden chair, and there I sat for an unconscion- 
able time, faint and dizzy with suspense. The chance 
words I had heard in the crowd, the manager's remark 
about the claws, the memory of the savage spring at the 
beloved face made me feel sick. Every now and then, 
as some doors leading to the stage swung open, I could 
hear the orchestra and the laughter and applause of the 
audience. Both Dawkins and Quast visited me. The 
former was in a helpless state of tears and hand-wring- 
ing. As she knew no word of German she could imder- 
stand nothing that the doctors or others said. Madame 
was imconsdous. Her head was tightly bandaged. 
That was all the definite information she had. 

"Did Madame know I was in front to-night?" I 
asked. 

"Oh, yes, sir! I think she had a letter from you. 
She was so pleased, poor dear Madame. She told me 
that you would see the best performance she had ever 
given." 

Whereupon she broke down and was useless for fur- 
ther examination. Then Quast came. He could not 
understand how the accident had occurred. Hephaestus 



SIMON THE JESTER 315 

had never before tried to attack her. She had absolute 
mastery over him, and he usually behaved with her as 
gently as any of the other cats. With himself it was 
quite different* He was accustomed to Hephaestus 
springing at him; but then he beat him hard with a 
great stick until he was so sore that he could neither 
stand up nor lie down. 

"I have always implored Madame to carry some- 
thing heavier than that silly little wUp, and now it's aU 
over. She will never be able to control him again. 
Hephsestxis will have to be kiUed, and I will be desdate. 
Ach, what a misfortune!" 

He began to weep. 

"Grood God!" I cried; **you don't mean to say that 
you're sorry for the brute?" 

" One can't help being fond of him — das arme Thiert 
We have been for five years inseparable companions!" 

I had no sympathy to fling away on him at that 
moment. 

''How do you account for his spring at Madame to- 
night? That's all I want to know." 

"She must have been thinking of something else 
when she grabbed him, gnddiger Herr. For she missed 
her grip. Then he fell and was frightened, and she must 
have lost her nerve. Hephasstus knew it, and sprang. 
That is always the case when wild animals turn. All 
accidents happen like that." 

His words filled me with a new and sickening dread. 
*^She must have been thinking of something else J* Of 
what else but of my presence there? That stupid, 
selfish wave of the handkerchief! I sat gnawing my 
hands and cursing myself. 

The ambulance arrived. Men hurried past my box. 
I waited again in agony of mind. At last the porter 
came and cleared the passage and doorway of loungers, 
and I heard the tread of footsteps and gruff directions. 




3i6 



SIMON THE JESTER 



The manager and a man in a frock-coat and black tie, 
whom I recognised as the doctor, came down the pas- 
sage, followed by two great men carrying between them 
a stretcher covered by a sheet on which lay all that I 
loved in life. Dawkins followed, weeping, and then 
came several theatre folk. I went outside and saw 
the stretcher put into the ambulance-van, and then I 
made m)rself known to the doctor. 

**She has received very great injuries — chiefly the 
right cheek and eye. So much so that she needs an 
oculist's care at once. I have telephoned to Dr. Stein- 
holz, of No. 4, Thiergarten, one of our ablest oculists, 
to receive her now into his clinique. If you care to do 
so, you are welcome to accompany me." 

I drove through the gay, flaring streets of Berlin like 
a man in a phantasmagoria of horror. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

The first time they allowed me to see her was after many 
days of nerve-racking anxiety. I had indeed called at 
the dinique two or three times a day for news, and I 
had written short letters of comfort and received weirdly- 
spelt messages taken down from Lola's dictation by 
a nurse with an imperfect knowledge of English. These 
kept the heart in me; for the doctor's reports were 
invariably grave — possible loss of sight in the injured 
eye and permanent disfigurement their most hopeful 
prognostications. I lived, too, in a nervous agony 
of remorse. For whatever happened I held myself 
responsible. At first they thought her life was in dan- 
ger. I passed nightmare days. Then the alarming 
symptoms subsided, and it was a question of the saving 
of the eye and the decent healing of the cheek torn 
deep by the claws of the accursed brute. When Quast 
informed me of its summary execution I felt the primi- 
tive savage arise in me, and I upbraided Quast for not 
having invited me to gloat over its expiring throes. 
How the days passed I know not. I wandered about 
the streets, looking into the windows of the great shops, 
buying fiowers and fruit for Lola in eccentric quantities, 
or sitting in beerhouses reading the financial pages 
of a German paper held upside down. I could not 
return to London. Still less could I investigate the 
German philanthropic methods of rescuing fallen 
women. I wrote to Campion a brief account of what 
had happened and besought him to set a deputy to work 
on the regeneration of the Judds. 
At last they brought me to where Lola lay, in a 

3»7 




3i8 SIMON THE JESTER 

darkened room, with her head tightly bandaged. A 
dark mass spread over the pillow which I knew was her 
glorious hair. I could scarcely see the unbandaged 
half of her face. She still suffered acute pain, and I was 
warned that my visit could only be of brief duration, and 
that nothing but the simplest matters could be discussed. 
I sat down on a chair by the left side of the bed. Her 
wonderful nervous hand clung round mine as we talked. 

The first thing she said to me, in a weak voice, like 
the faint echo of her deep tones, was: 

''I'm going to lose all my good looks, Simon, and jrou 
wcMi't care to look at me any more." 

She said it so simply, so tenderly, without a hint of 
reproach in it, that I almost shouted out my horrible 
remorse; but I remembiered my injunctions and re- 
frained. I strove to comfort her, telling her mythical 
tales of surgical reassurances. She shook her head 
sadly. 

"It was like you to stay in Berlin, Simon," she said, 
after a while. "Although they wouldn't let me see 
you, yet I knew you were within call. You can't con- 
ceive what a comfort it has been." 

"How could I leave you, dear," said I, "with the 
thought of you throbbing in my head night and day?" 

"How did you find me?" 

"Through Conto and Blag. I tried all other means, 
you may be sure. But now I've found you I shan't let 
you go again." 

This was not the time for elaborate explanations. 
She asked for none. When one is very ill one takes the 
most unlikely happenings as conmionplace occinrences. 
It seemed enough to her that I was by her side. We 
talked of her nurses, who were kind; of the skill of Dr. 
Stdnholz, who brought into his dinique the rigid dis- 
cipline of a man-of-war. 

"He wouldn't even let me have your flowers," she 



SIMON THE JESTER 319 

said. ''And even if he had I shouldn't have been able 
to see .them in this dark hole." 

She questioned me as to my doings. I told her of 
my move to Barbara's Building. 

"And I'm keeping you from all that splendid work," 
she said weakly. "You must go back at once, Simon. 
I shall get along nicely now, and I shall be happy now 
that I've seen you ag^in." 

I kissed her fingers. "You have to learn a lesson, 
my dear, which will do you an enormous amount of 
good." 

"What is that?" 

"The glorious duty of selfishness," said I. 

Then the minute hand of the clock marked the end 
of the interview, and the nurse appeared on the click 
and turned me out. 

After that I saw her daily; gradually our interviews 
lengthened, and as she recovered strength our talks 
wandered from the little incidents and interests of the 
sick-room to the general topics of our lives. I told her 
of all that had happened to me since her flight. And I 
told her that I wanted her and her only of all women. 

"Why — oh, why, did you do such a foolish thing?" 
I asked. 

"I did it for your good." 

"My dear," said I, "have you ever heard the story 
of the tender-hearted elephant? No? It was told in 
a wonderful book published years ago and called 'The 
Fables of George Washington iEsop.' This is it. 
There was once an elephant who accidentally trod on 
the mother of a brood of newly-hatched chickens. Her 
tender heart filled with remorse for what she had done, 
and, overflowing with pity for the fluffy orphans, she 
wept bitterly, and addressed them thus: 'Poor little 
motherless things, doomed to face the rough world 
without a parent's care, I myself will be a mother to you.* 




320 SIMON THE JESTER 

Whereupon, gathering them under her with maternal 
fondness, she sat down on the whole brood." 

The unbandaged half of her face lit up mth a wan 
smile. "Did I do that?" 

" Something like it," said I. 

"I didn't conceive it possible that you could love me 
except for the outside things." 

"You might have waited and seen," said I in mild 
reproof. 

She sighed. "You'll never understand. Do you 
remember my sa]dng once that you reminded me of an 
English Duke?" 

"Yes." 

"You made fun of me; but you must have known 
what I meant. You see, Sunon, you didn't seem to 
care a hang for me in that way — until quite lately. You 
were goodness and kindness itself, and I felt that you 
would stick by me as a friend through thick and thin; 
but I had given up hoping for anything else. And I 
knew there was some one only waiting for you, a real 
refined lady. So when you kissed me, I didn't dare 
believe it. And I had made you kiss me. I told you so, 
and I was as ashamed as if I had suddenly turned into 
a loose woman. And when Miss Faversham came, I 
knew it would be best for you to marry her, for all the 
flattering things she said to me, I knew " 

" My dear," I interrupted, " you didn't know at all. I 
loved you ever since I saw you first l]dng like a wonder- 
ful panther in your chair at Cadogan Gardens. You 
wove yourself into all my thoughts and around all my 
actions. One of these days I'll show you a kind of 
diary I used to keep, and you'll see how I abused you 
behind yoiu* back." 

Her face — or the dear half of it that was visible — 
fell. "Oh, why?" 

" For making me turn aside from the nice little smooth 



SIMON THE JESTER 321 

path to the grave which I had marked out for myself. 
I regarded myself as a genteel semi-corpse, and didn't 
want to be disturbed." 

"And I disturbed you?" 

"Until I danced with fury and called down on your 
dear head maledictions which for fulness and snap would 
have made a mediaeval Pope squirm with envy." 

She pressed my hand. "You are making fun again. 
I thought you were serious." 

"I am," said I. "Fm telling you exactly what hap- 
pened. Then, when I was rapidly approaching the 
other world, it didn't matter. At last I died and came 
to life again; but it took me a long time to come really 
to life. I was like a tree in spring which has one bud 
which obstinately refuses to burst into blossom. At 
last it did burst, and all the love that had been working 
in my heart came to my lips; and, incidentally, my 
dear, to yoxurs." 

This was at the early stages of her recovery, when one 
could only speak of gentle things. She told me of her 
simple Odyssey — a period of waiting in Paris, an en- 
gagement at Vienna and Budapest, and then Berlin. 
Her agents had booked a week in Dresden, and a fort- 
night in Homburg, and she would have to pay the forfeit 
for breach of contract. 

"Fm sorry for Anastasius's sake," she said. "The 
poor little mite wrote me rapturous letters when he 
heard I was out with the cats. He gave me a long 
special message for each, which I was to whisper in its 



car." 



Poor little Anastasius Papadopoulos! She showed 
me his letters, written in a great roun^, flourishing, 
sanguine hand. He seemed to be happy enough at the 
Maison de Santd He had formed, be said, a school for 
the cats of the establishment, for which the authorities 
were very grateful, and he heralded the completion of 
21 




jzz SIMON THE JESTER 

his gjigantic combinations with regard to the discovery 
of the assassin of the horse Sultan. Lola and I never 
spoke of him without pain; for in spite of his crazy 
and bombastic oddities, he had qualities that were 
lovable. 

'' And now/' said Lola, '' I must tell him that Hephaes- 
tus has been killed and the rest are again idluQg under 
the care of the faithful Quast. It seemed a pity to kiD 
the poor beast." 

" I wish to Heaven," said I, ''that he had been strangled 
at birth." 

"You never liked him." She smiled wanly. "But 
he is scarcely to be blamed. I grew imaccountably 
nervous and lost control. All savage animals are like 
that." And, seeing that I was about to protest ve- 
hementiy, she smiled agdn. ''Remember, I'm a lion- 
tamer's daughter, and brought up from childhood to 
regard these things as part of the show. There must 
always come a second's failure of concentration. Lc^ 
of tamers meet their deaths sooner or later for the same 
reason — ^just a sudden loss of magnetism. The beast 
gets frightened and springs." 

Exactly what Quast had told me. Exactly what I 
myself had divined at the sickening moment. I bowed 
my head and laid the back of her cool hand against it, 
and groaned out my remorse. If I had not been therel 
If I had not distracted her attention! She would not 
listen to my self-reproach. It had nothing to do with 
me. She had simply missed her grip and lost her head. 
She forbade me to mention the subject again. The 
misery of thinking that I held myself to blame was 
unbearable. I said no more, realising the acute dis- 
tress of her generous soul, but in my heart I made a deep 
vow of reparation. 

It was, however, with no such chivalrous feelings, but 
out of the simple longing to fulfil my life that I asked her 






SIMON THE JESTER 323 

definitely, for the first time, to marry me as soon as 
she could get about the world again. I put before her 
with what delicacy I could that if she had foolish ideas 
of my being above her in station, she was above me in 
worldly fortune, and thus we both had to make some 
sacrifices to our pride. I said that my work was found 
— that our lives could be regulated as she wished. 

She listened, without saying a word, until I had fin- 
ished. Then she took my hand. 

*' I'm grateful," she said, '' and I'm proud. And I know 
that I love you beyond all things on earth. But I won't 
give you an answer till Fm up and about on my feet 
again." 

"Why?" I insisted. 

"Don't ask. And don't mention the matter again. 
You must be good to me, because Fm ill, and do what I say." 

She smiled and fondled my hand, and cajoled a re- 
luctant promise from me. 

Then came days in which, for no obvious reason, Lola 
received me with anxious frightened diflSdence, and 
spoke with constraint. The cheerfulness which she 
hsid hitherto exhibited gave place to dull depression. 
She urged me continually to leave Berlin, where, as she 
said, I was wasting my time, and return to my work in 
London. 

"I shall be all right, Simon, perfecdy all right, and as 
soon as I can travel, I'll come straight to London." 

"I am not going to let you slip through my fingers 
again," I would say laughingly. 

"But I promise you, I'll swear to you I'll come back! 
Only I can't bear to think of you idling around a wo- 
man's sick-bed, when you have such glorious things to 
do at home. That's a man's work, Simon. This isn't." 

"But it is a man's work," I would declare, "to devote 
hhnsdf to the woman he loves and not to leave her 
hdpless, a stronger in a strange land." 




324 SIMON THE JESTER 

**I wish you would go, Simon. I do wish you would 
gol" she would say wearily. "It's the only fcivour I've 
ever asked you in my life." 

Man-like, I looked within myself to find the reason 
for these earnest requests. In casting off my jester's 
suit had I also divested myself of the power to be a 
decently interesting companion? Had I become merely 
a didl, tactless, egotistical bore? Was I, in simple, 
naked, horrid fact, getting on an invalid's delicate 
nerves? I was scared of the new picture of m}rself 
thus presented. I became self-conscious and made 
particular efforts to bring a litde gaiety into oiu* talk; 
but though she smiled with her lips, the cloud, what- 
ever it was, hung heavily on her mind, and at the first 
opportunity she came back to the ceaseless argument 
-\ In despair I took her niu*se into my confidence. 

"She is right," said the nurse. "You are doing her 
more harm than good. You had much better go away 
and write to her daily from London." 

"But why — ^but why?" I clamoured. "Can't you 
^ve me any reason?" 

The nurse glanced at me with a touch of feminine acorn. 

"The bandages will soon be removed." 

'*Well?" said I. 

**The sight of the one eye may be gone." 

**I know," said I. "She is reconciled to it. She 
has the courage and resignation of a saint." 

"She has also the very conmion and natural fears 
of a woman." 

"For Heaven's sake," I cried, "tell me plainly what 
you mean." 

"We don't quite know what disfigurement will re- 
sult," said the nurse bluntly. "It is certain to be very 
great, and the dread of your seeing her is making her iD 
and retarding her recovery. So if you have any regard 
for her, pack up your things and go away." 



SIMON THE JESTER 325 

"But," I remonstrated, "I'm bound to see her sooner 
or later." 

The nurse lost patience. ^^Achl Wie dumm sind 
die Mdnnerl Can't you get it into your head that it is 
eisentiaMt should be later, when she is strong enough 
to stand the strain and has realised the worst and made 
her little preparations?" 

I accepted the rebuke meekly. The situation, when 
explained, was comprehensible to the meanest masculine 
intelligence. 

"Iwmgo,"saidI. 

When I announced this determination to Lola she 
breathed a deep sigh of relief. 

"I shall be so much happier," she said. 

Then she raised both her arms and drew my head 
down until our lips met. "Dear," she whispered, still 
holding me, "if I hadn't run away from you before I 
should run away now; but it would be so silly to do it 
twice. So I'll come to London as soon as the doctor 
will let me. But if you find you don't and can't pos- 
sibly love me I shan't feel hurt with you. I've had 
some months, I know, of your love, and that will last me 
all my life; and I know that whatever happens you'll 
be my very dear and devoted friend." 

"I shall be your lover always!" I swore. 

She shook her head and released me. A great pity 
welled up in my heart, for I know now why she had 
forbidden me to speak of marriage, and in some dim 
way I got to the depth of her woman's nature. I re- 
alised, as isLT as a man can, how the sudden blasting 
of a woman's beauty must revolutionise not only her 
own attitude towards the world, but her conception of 
the world's attitude • towards her. Only a few weeks 
before she had gone about proudly conscious of her 
superb magnificence. It was the triumphant weapon 1 
in her woman's armoury, to use when she so chose. It \ 




326 SIMON THE JESTER 

had illuminated a man's journey (I knew and felt it now) 
through the Valley of the Shadow. It had held his 
senses captive. It had brought him to her feet. It was 
a charm that she could always offer to his eyes. It was 
her glory and her pride to enhance it for his delectation. 
Her beauty was herself. That gone, she had nothing 
but a worthless soul to offer, and what woman would 
dream of offering a man her soul if she had no casket 
in which to enshrine it? If I had presented this other 
aspect of the case to Lola, she would have cried out, 
with perfect sincerity: 

"My soul! You get things like mine an)rwhere for 
twopence a dozen." 

It was the blasting of her beauty that was the infinite 
matter. All that I loved would be gone. She would 
have nothing left to give. The splendour of the day 
had ceased, and now was coming tibe long, long, dreary 
night, to meet which with dignity she was nerving her 
brave heart. 

The tears were not far from my eyes when I said 
again softly: 

"Your lover always, dear." 

"Make no promises," she said, "except one." 

"And that is?" 

"That you will write me often until I come home." 

" Every day," said I. 

So we parted, and I returned to London and to my 
duties at Barbara's Building. I wrote daily, and her 
dictated answers gave me knowledge of her progress. 
To my inmiense relief, I heard that the oculist's skill 
had saved her eyesight; but it could not obliterate 
the traces of the cruel claws. 

The days, although fuller with work and interests, 
appeared long until she came. I saw but little of the 
outside world. Dale, my sister Agatha, Sir Joshua 
Oldfield, and Campion were the only friends I met. 




JMU liviSttCKM Tuu^^i 




r u r!!- < ^ i ^ L- 1 - ' 



- r f. 






SIMON THE JESTER 327 

Dale was ingenuously sympathetic when he heard of 
the calamity. 

"What's going to happen?" he asked, after he had 
exhausted his vocabulary of abuse on cats, Providence and 
Anastasius Papadopoidos. "What's the poor dear 
going to do?" 

"If I am to have any voice in the matter," said I, 
"she is going to marry me." 

He wnmg me by the hand enthusiastically and de- 
clared that I was the splendidest fellow that ever lived 
Then he sighed. 

"I am going about like a sheep without a leader. 
For Heaven's sake, come back into politics. Form 
a hilarious little party of your own — ^anything — so long 
as you're back and take me with you." 

"Come to Barbara's Building," said I. 

But he made a wry face, and said that he did not 
think Maisie would like it. I laughed and put my 
hand on his shoulder. 

"My son," said I, "you have a leader already, and 
she has already tied a blue riband round your woolly 
neck, and she is pulling you wherever she wants to go. 
And it's all to the infinite advantage of your eternal soul." 

Whereupon he grinned and departed to the sheepfold. 

At last Lola came. She begged me not to meet her 
at the station, but to go round after dinner to Cadogan 
Gardens. 

Dawkins opened the door for me and showed me 
into the familiar drawing-room. The long sunmier day 
was nearing its end, and only a dim twilight came 
through the open windows. Lola was standing rigid 
on the hearthrug, her hand shielding the whole of the 
right side of her face. With the free hand she checked 
my impetuous advance. 

"Stop and look!" she said, and then dropped the 
shielding hand, and stood before me with twitching lips 




328 SIMON THE JESTER 

and death in her eyes. I saw in a flash the devastation 
that had been wrought; but, thank God^ I pierced 
beneath it to the anguish in her heart. The pity — the 
awful, poignant pity — of it smote me. Everything 
that was man in me surged towards her. What she saw 
in my eyes I know not; but in hers dawned a sudden 
wonder. There was no recoil of shock, such as she had 
steeled herself to encounter. I sprang forward and 
clasped her in my arms. Her stiffened frame gradually 
relaxed and our lips met, and in that kiss all fears and 
doubts were dissolved for ever. 

Some hours later she said: ''If you are blind enough 
to care for a maimed thing like me, I canH help it. I 
shall never understand it to my dying day," she added 
with a long sigh. 

" And you wiH marry me ?" 

"I suppose Fve got to," she replied. And with the 
old pantherine twist of her body she slid from her easy- 
chair to the ground and biuied her face on my knees. 

And that is the end of my story. We were quietly 
married three weeks afterwards. Agatha, wishing to 
humour a maniac for whom she retained an unreason- 
able affection, came to the wedding and treated Lola 
as only a sweet lady could. But my doings passed her 
understanding. As for Jane, my other sister, she cast 
me from her. People who did these things, she main- 
tained, must bear the consequences. I bore them 
bravely. It is only now that my name is beginning to 
be noised abroad as that of one who speaks with some 
knowledge on certain social questions that Jane holds 
out the olive branch of fraternal peace. After a brief 
honeymoon Lola insisted on joining me in Barbara's 
Building. A set of rooms next to mine was vacant, 
and Ciunpion, who welcomed a new worker, had the 
two sets thrown into what house-agents tenn a com- 



SIMON THE JESTER 329 

modious flat. She is now Lady Superior of the Insti- 
tution. The title is Campion's, and for some old 
feminine reason Lola is delighted with it. 

Yes, this is the end of the story which I began (it seems 
in a previous incarnation) at Murglebed-on-Sea. 

The maiming of Lola's beauty has been the last jest 
which the Arch- Jester has practised on me. I fancy 
he thought that this final scurvy trick would wipe Simon 
de Grex for ever out of the ranks of his rivals. But I 
flatter myself that, having snapped my fingers in his 
face, the last laugh has been on my side. He has with- 
drawn discomfited from the conflict and left me master 
of the ground. Love conquers all, even the Arch- 
Jester. 

There are some who still point to me as one who has 
dehberately ruined a brilliant career, who pity me as 
one who has gone under, who speak with shrugged 
shoulders and uplifted eyebrows at my unfortimate 
marriage and my obscure and cranky occupation. The 
world, they say, was at my feet. So it was. But what 
the pitying critics lack the grace to understand is that 
better than to have it under one's feet is to have it, or that 
of it which matters, at one's heart. 

I sit in this tiny hotel by the sea and reflect that it 
is over three years since I awoke from death and assumed 
a new avatar. And since my marriage, what have been 
the happenings? 

Dale has just been elected for the Fensham Division 
of Westmoreland, and he has already begun the line of 
sturdy young Kynnersleys, of which I had eumoirous 
dreams long ago. Quast and the cats have passed into 
alien han(k. Anastasius Papadopoulos is dead. He 
died three months ago of angina pectoris, and Lola was 
with him at the end. Eleanor Faversham has married 
a Colonial bishop. Campion, too, has married — ^and 
married the last woman in the world to whom one would 




330 SIMON THE JESTER 

have thought of mating him — a frivolous butterfly 
of a creature who drags him to dimier-pardes and Asoot 
and suppers at the Savoy, and holds Barbara's Build- 
ing and all it connotes in vixenish detestation. He 
roars out the agony of his philanthropic spirit to Lola 
and myselfy who administer consolation and the cold 
mutton that he loves. The story of his marriage is 
a little lunatic drama all to itself and I will tell it some 
day. But now I can only rough-sketch the facts. 
He works when he can at the beloved creation of his 
life and fortune; but the brain that would be inade- 
quate to the self-protecting needs of a ferret controls 
the action of this masterful enthusiast, and his one 
awful despair in life is to touch a heart that might beat 
in the bosom of a vicious and calculating haddock. I 
only mention this to e^lain how it has come to pass 
that Lola and I are now all-powerful in Barbara's Build- 
ing. It has become the child of our adoption, and 
we love it with a deep and almost fanatic affection. 
Before Lola my influence and personality fade into 
nothingness. She is the power, the terror, the adora- 
tion of Lambeth. If she chose she could control the 
Parliamentary vote of the borough. Her great, direct, 
laige-hearted personality carries all before it. And 
with it there is something of the uncanny. A feat of 
hers in the early days is by way of becoming legendary. 
A woman, on the bool^ of the Building, was about 
to bring a hopeless human fragment into a grey world. 
Lola went to see what aid the Building could provide. 
In front of the door lounged the husband, a hulking 
porter in a Bermondsey factory. Glowering at his feet 
lay a vicious mongrd dog--bull-terrier, Irish-terrier, 
mastiff — so did Lola with her trained eye distinguish 
the strains. When she asked for his wife in travafl the 
chivalrous gentleman took his pipe from his mouth, spat, 
and after the manner of his kind referred to the dis- 



SIMON THE JESTER 331 

figurement of her face in terms impossible to transcribe. 
She paid no attention. 

*'I'm coming upstairs to see your wife." 

**If you pass that door, s'welp me Gawd, I'll set the 
dog on yer." 

She paused. He urged on the dog, who bristled and 
growled and showed his teeth. Lola picked the animal 
up, as she would have picked up a sofa cushion, and 
threw him across the street. She went to where he 
had fallen, ordered him to her feet, and the dog licked 
her hand. She came back with a laugh. 

"I'll do the same to you if you don't let me in!" 

She pushed the hullung brute aside. He resisted and 
laid ha^ds on her. By some extraordinary tamer's art 
of which she has in vain tried to explain to me the secret, 
and with no apparent efiFort, she glided away from him 
and sent him cowering and subdued some feet beyond 
the lintel of the door. The street, which was watching, 
went into a roar of laughter and applause. Lola 
mounted the stairs and attended to the business in 
hand. When she came down the man was still standing 
at the threshold smoking an obfusticated pipe. He 
blinked at her as if she had been a human dynamo. 

"Come roimd to Barbara's Building at six o'clock 
and tell me how she is." 

He came on the stroke of six. 

The fame of Lola spread through the borough, and 
now she can walk feared, honoured, unmolested by 
night or day through the streets of horror and crime, which 
neither I nor any other man — ^no matter how courageous 
— dare enter at certain hours without the magical pro- 
tection of a policeman. 

Simshine has come at last, both into this little back- 
water of the world by the sea and inio my own life, 
and it is time I should end this futile record. 

Yesterday as we lay on the sands, watching the waves 




332 



SIMON THE JESTER 



idly lap the shore, Lola brought herself nearer to me 
with a rhythmic movement as no other creature form 
of woman is capable of, and looked into my eyes. And 
she whispered something to me which led to an infinite 
murmuring of foolish things. I put my arms round 
her and kissed her on her lips and on ha* cheek — 
whether the beautiful or the maimed I knew not — and 
she sank into a long, long silence. At last she said: 

*' What are you thinking of?" 

I said, 'Tm thinking that not a single human being 
on the face of the earth has a sense of humour." 

"What do you mean?" she asked. 

"Simply this," said I, "that what has occurred bil- 
lions of billions of millions of times on the earth we are 
now regarding as the only thing that ever happened." 

"Well," said Lola, "so it is— for us — the only thing 
that ever happened." 

And the astounding woman was right 



THE EHD 



THE COMPLETE WORKS 

OF 

WILLIAM J. LOCKE 

"Life is a glorious thing.** — W, /. Loch 

"If you wish to be lifted out of the petty cares of to-day, read one 
of Locke* 8 novels. You may select any from the following titles 
and be certain of meeting some new and delightful friends. His 
characters are worth knowing. ** — Baltimore Sun, 



The Morals of Blarcns Ordeyae 

At the Qete of Samaria 

A Study in Shadows 

Simon the Jester 

Where Love Is 

Derelicts 



The Demagogue and Lady Phayre 

The Beloved Vagabond 

The White Dove 

The Usurper 

Septimus 

Idols 



12mo. Cloth. $1.50 each 

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$18,00 per set. Half Morocco $50.00 net. Express prepaid. 

Simon the Jester 

(Profusely illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg) 

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out-of-the-ordinary and splendidly depicted; and the end is an 
artistic triumph — a fitting climax for a story that*s full of charm 
and surprise. ** — American Magascine. 

The Beloved Vagabond 

** 'The Beloved Vagabond* is a gently-written, fascinating tale. 
Make his acquaintance spme dreary, rain-soakea evening and find 
the vagabond nerve-thrilling in your own heart. ** 

'-^Chicago Record-HeraU. 

Septimus (illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg) 

''Septimus is the joy of the year. ** — American Magazine. 

The Morals of Marcus Ordesrne 

** One of those rare and much-to-be-desired stories which keep one 
divided between an interested impatience to get on and an irresis- 
tible temptation to linger for full enjoyment by the way. ** — Lift. 

Where Love Is 

" One of those unusual novels of which the end is as good as the 
beginning.** — Ne^Af York Globe. 




WILLIAM J. LOCKE 
The Usurper 

" Contains the hall-mark of genhis itself. The plot b masterir te 
conception, the descriptions are all vivid flashes from a brUliaiit 
pen. It is impossible to read and not marvel at the skilled work- 
manship and the constant dramatic intensity of the inddent, situ- 
ations and climax.** — Tks Boston HeraUU 

Derelicts 

** Mr. Locke tells his story In a very troe, a very moving, and a 
very noble book. If any one can r^ui the last chapter with dry 
eyes we shall be surprised. * Dardicts ' is an impressive, an im- 
portant book. Yvonne is a creatioa that any artist might be proad 
oL"'^Th4 DaUy Chrouicii. 

Idols 

"One of the very few dlsdngaished novels of this preseni book 
season." — Thi Daily Mail, 

" A brilliantly written and eminently readable book.** 

^Tht L(mdm% Daily TeiigwrnpL 

A Study in Shadows 

** Mr. Locke has achieved a distinct saccess in this noveL He has 
stmck many emotional chords, and stmck them all with a firm, 
snre hand. In the relations between Katherine and Raine he had 
a delicate problem to handle, and he has handled it delicately." 

— Tkt Daily Chramek. 

The White Dove 

* It is an interesting story. The characters are strongly conceived 
and vividly presented, and the dramatic moments are powerfully 
realized." — Tkg Morning Post. 

The Demagogue and Lady Phajrre 

^ Think of Locke's clever books. Then think of a book as diffsr- 
ent from any of these as one can well imagino— that will be Mr. 
Locke's new book."— AVw York WorUU 



At the Gate of 

** William J. Locke's novels are nothing if not annsnaL Thaj art 
marked by a quaint originality. The habitual novel reader inavi- 
tably is grateful for a refreshing sense of escaping the 
place path of conclusion."— Ci/Wi/v Xicord-lferald. 



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As Ye Have Sown 

•« A brilliant story dealing with the world of fashion.** 

Captain Amyas 

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''Startlingly plain spoken." — LtmuvUU Conrurjoumal, 

The Rat Trap 

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^^Sp^tai^r* 

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%* The love-story of a yoong girL 

The Pathway of the Pioneer. 

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for matnal help and cheer under the name of ** Nous Autres." 
They represent, collectively, the professions open to women of no 
deliberate trainmg, though well educated. They are introduced to 
the reader at one of their weekly gatherinf|[8 and then the author 
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EMERY POTTLE 

Handicapped. An American Love-story. 

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BY 

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CAPTAIN DESMOND 
THE GREAT AMULET 
CANDLES IN THE WIND 

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{ 




An American Love-Story 

MARGARITA'S SOUL 

BY 

JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON 

[INQRAHAM LOVSLL] 

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THE HAVEN 



BY 

EDEN PHILLPOTTS 

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EDEN PHILLPOTTS 



The Thief of Virtue 



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The Haven 



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" It is no dry bones of a chronicle, but touched by genius to life 
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(< 



<( 



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''R^ers must judge for themselves. Women may read it for 
warning as well as entertainment, and they will find both. Men 
may read it for reproach that any of their kmd can treat such women 
so. And moralists of either sex will find instructions for their 
homilies, as well as a warning that there may be more than one 
straight and narrow way.** — Ifenu York Timei. 

Six Fairy Plays for Children 

Sg. I2mo. $1.00 neL Butagg 8 cents. 



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